Descent into Chaos
by xxSPARTAN119xx
Summary: Twenty-five years after Hinamizawa, cured of the syndrome, Keiichi Maebara and Rena Ryuguu, are now married and have left Hinamizawa for major city in the United States. They escaped one nightmare... to discover another
1. Chapter 1: Welcome Back to Hell

Disclaimer: I do not own Higurashi no naku koro or Condemned 2: Bloodshot or any of the characters.

Chapter 1: Welcome Back to Hell

Keiichi Maebara sat in front of the television with his wife of twenty years, Rena. He had known Rena since his childhood in the small village of Hinamizawa, Japan, a past filled with horrors that he would rather forget. Shortly after finishing university, Keiichi and Rena got married and moved to a major city in the U.S., hoping to escape the village that held so many memories of the nightmare they went through as children. They though the nightmare was over. Little did they know, the nightmare was far from over.

Keiichi sat in front of the television with his wife, it was about ten o'clock, and the local news was broadcasting the usual stories of crime rates increasing dramatically increasing, another riot was in progress. It was then that something caught Keiichi's ear. "The rioters are currently at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Johnson road". "Fifth and Johnson", Rena said, "That's just a block from here."

Keiichi and Rena lived in a restored building in the downtown area of the city, renovated in a period of urban renewal in the '90s and made into middle-class housing. "We have to get out of here" Keiichi replied "Rena, get the car keys, I'll get the gun." The gun Keiichi spoke of was a Smith and Wesson 37 revolver Keiichi had purchased shortly after arriving in America, in part due to his fear that something like what happened in Hinamizawa would happen again.

Twenty minutes later, the Maebaras' car was speeding down a highway overpass cutting through the city's industrial district. "Keiichi", Rena asked, "Do you think the syndrome made it here somehow, like a bioterror attack or something?" "What?" Keiichi asked, "You mean the Hinamizawa Syndrome? Come on Rena, you know as well as I do the Dr. Irie discovered a cure based off Rika's DNA, back in 1987. I mean how else could we have come here? But...", Keiichi continued, "there is definitely something weird going on here!"

"Keiichi!", Rena yelled, "Look out!" Rena pointed straight ahead, at the Stafford Street exit, about 20 or 30 rioters blocked the highway. One of the rioters raised a handgun and fired several shots at the car, one round striking the vehicle's right front tire. The car spun out violently before slamming into a concrete barricade.

Keiichi raised his head from the airbag, feeling slightly dazed. He reached for his Smith and Wesson and aimed it out the window. The rioter with the pistol walked towards the car, evidently planning to finish Keiichi and Rena off at point black range. Keiichi raised his revolver and fired two shots through the car window. The rioter was struck both times in the chest, and crumpled to the ground as Keiichi turned to Rena. She was dazed, but she still seemed like she had a pulse.

Before Keiichi could shake her awake, however, he noticed the last thing he wanted to see out the window: a rioter in a ski mask raising a Molotov cocktail, poised to throw. Keiichi fired a single well-aimed shot at the Molotov in the rioter's hand. The homemade incendiary device exploded in the rioter's hand, setting him and several of his fellows ablaze. They writhed on the ground, burning for several seconds, before finally becoming motionless.

"What? Was that a gunshot!? Am I still alive?" Rena asked. "You're fine", Keiichi said, "But we've got to get out of here!" The car was surrounded by rioters on all sides, and there was no driving away with their shot out tire. Then, Rena saw it. "That fire escape!, we're gonna have to fight are way through the rioters and jump for it" said as she retrieved a tire iron from under her seat. The fire escape catwalk was on a run-down building only about five feet from away from the overpass, and about ten feet below, it looked like it would be possible to jump it. Keiichi and Rena both slammed the doors open and knocked over a couple of rioters armed with various blunt instruments. A rioter ran at Keiichi with a baseball bat. Keiichi immediately raised his revolver and fired on shot, the bullet striking the rioter in the head. He fell to the pavement at once. Rena, meanwhile, didn't see a rioter approaching from behind with a machete.

"Rena! Behind you." Rena turned on the spot. She raised her tire iron to block an incoming blow from her attacker. The tire iron was knocked from her hand, sending it flying off the overpass. Keiichi took aim and shot Rena's attacker. Rena seized the dead man's machete and slashed wildly at any rioter that came in reach of her blade. Keiichi turned to see a man with a piece of rebar charging at him. Keiichi tried to fire his pistol, but heard only the click of an empty chamber. Keiichi kicked at the man's leg, tripping him up, before seizing a baseball bat lying near the body of the rioter he shot earlier. The rebar-wielder tried to get up, but Keiichi struck him with the baseball bat, knocking him to the ground, whether dead or unconscious, Keiichi neither knew nor cared. "Rena", Keiichi yelled, "This way", knocking several rioters out of the way with a baseball bat before climbing over the concrete barrier on the edge of the highway as jumped for his life.

The fire escape catwalk shook as first Rena, then Keiichi landed on it. "Keep moving!" Keiichi yelled as he raised his bat and smashed a window. Suddenly, he felt something land on his feet. It was a metal pipe with two endcaps and a lit fuse sticking out one end. "SHIT! IT'S A BOMB!!", Keiichi yelled as he jumped through the window he had just broken, pushing Rena along with him.

Rena landed face first on the floor of the building, a run down apartment complex, followed almost immediately by Keiichi. Seconds later, the pipe bomb exploded, shaking the building and blowing the fire escape clean off the building. Keiichi got up and looked to Rena. "You okay?", He asked. "I…think so", Rena replied. Keiichi then looked from Rena, with her machete to his baseball bat. "Great", Keiichi commented, "As if this isn't enough like Hinamizawa already!"


	2. Chapter 2: Descending into Chaos

Disclaimer: I do not own Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni or Condemned 2: Bloodshot or any of the characters.

Chapter 2: Descending into Chaos

Keiichi and Rena took in their surroundings. He were an abandoned apartment complex, the walls had holes smashed in them in places, the furniture was damaged, and everything was covered by a thick coat of dust. The two of them walked into the next room, which was in a similar state of disrepair, the floor strewn with garbage: cardboard boxes, food packaging, broken beer bottles, pieces of wood and brick, and most disturbing of all, several discarded hypodermic needles. "What's that thing on the wall?", asked Rena , pointing at a round red object similar to the kind of fire alarm bell you see in buildings with older alarm systems. The device was making a high-pitched ringing sound. "I'm going to take a closer look", Rena said as she walked closer the mysterious device.

Rena walked up to the device and turned to Keiichi, a look in her eyes that Keiichi had not seen there before… the look of insanity, bloodlust. Keiichi knew instantly that something was wrong. "Keiichi-kun", she said as she raised her machete, "You though you had escaped the wrath of Oyashiro-sama, didn't you. You were just delaying the inevitable". Keiichi desperately tried to figure out why Rena was acting this way. It took him less than a second. It was that device, he was sure of it.

Keiichi raised his baseball bat and ran at the device on the wall, swerving around Rena. The high pitched ringing emanating from the object grew louder and louder, piercing into Keiichi's head, reaching a deafening level as he reached striking distance of the device. Keiichi's head began to hurt as it never had before. Then soft whispering voices spoke in Keiichi's head. "She is an affront to Oyashiro-sama….. her and all the rest of humanity." Keiichi raised his bat as the voice said "Kill….kill them all". Keiichi began to feel murderous impulse towards Rena". "NO!" , Keiichi yelled, "GO AWAY!", Keiichi yelled as he brought his bat down on the device. The machine shattered, the outer casing breaking off as the internal components of the machine flew across the room as the high pitched sound of the device stopped instantly.

"What….. happened?" asked Rena from behind Keiichi. "I was walking towards that…. thing and I sort of blacked out". "You started get this look in your eyes, an insane… murderous rage and you started saying something about the "wrath of Oyashiro-sama". "My God…", Rena said, "It is…". "It's definitely not the syndrome", Keiichi replied, "It's that device, I'm sure of it. I started hearing voices in my head when I approached, I think I only barely managed to smash it before I snapped too." "Keiichi", Rena said, "I've never been more scared in my life, not even in Hinamizawa…." Keiichi put a comforting arm around her. "It's okay, I'm scared too, but we have to keep moving. We got out of Hinamizawa together, and we'll make it through this together."

Rena and Keiichi walked into down the hallway. The room had a window overlooking an elevated commuter train track. A wooden board bridged the gap between the tracks. Keiichi walked towards the window when suddenly, two men in bulletproof vests marked "FBI" ran by, carrying a dead body. About fifty feet behind them an unkempt, homeless-looking man in a black t-shirt with a white pattern similar to a bull's eye. Chasing the third man were about twelve rioters. One of the FBI agents put down the body and drew a handgun and fired three times at the rioters, dropping one of the third man's pursuers with each shot. The man in the black shirt ran past an electrical transformer, chased by the rioters.

The FBI agent with the handgun took aim at transformer and fired. The transformer exploded, killing the rioters and throwing the man in the black shirt forward, landing him face down on the tracks. The black shirted-man got up as a group of rioters jumped onto the tracks from the building opposite the one Rena and Keiichi were standing in. One of the rioters threw a Molotov cocktail onto the tracks, creating a wall of flames in the middle of the tracks. The man was trapped with the rioters on a small section of track by the flames on one side and a downed wire that was lethally arcing electricity on the other.

Two rioters approached the man in the black shirt as he got up, both armed with 2x4s studded with nails. The man reached for the nearest weapon he could find, a piece of a handrail. The first rioter took a swing at the man, but he blocked it with the handrail and kicked the rioter in the chest, knocking him backwards into the downed power lines blocking one end of the tracks. Thousands of volts of electricity coursed through the rioters body as he made contact with the wires. He writhed in pain for a couple seconds before the electricity stopped his heart. The man in the black shirt then turned to the second rioter, swinging the handrail at him, striking the rioter in the groin, before raising the handrail and striking the rioter again, over the head, knocking him to the ground.

The man in the black shirt ran towards the wooden plank connecting the tracks to Keiichi and Rena's vantage point. The man crossed the plank and kicked it into the gap to prevent the rioters from crossing before he looked towards Keiichi and Rena. "Who the hell are you two?!" he asked. "I'm Keiichi Maebara and this is my wife, Rena", Keiichi replied, gripping his baseball bat tightly in case the man showed any signs of attacking them. "Former FBI agent Ethan Thomas", the man replied. "Former FBI Agent?", Rena asked, taking in his unshaven face, tattered clothes, and the smell of alcohol about him, "How'd you end up like this…." "Later!", Ethan replied, "I don't have time to waste on this shit, we need to get out of her before we all get killed! "

Ethan lead Rena and Keiichi though a door in the rear of the room to a hallway filled with garbage bags, cardboard boxes, and a discarded forklift pallet. On the walls, someone had written "CLEAN THIS SHIT UP". Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena then walked down another hallway, this one also filled with garbage. The walls were again, covered in graffiti, this time reading "THIS AIN'T YOUR GODDAMN HALLWAY, GET OUT!", before climbing up a staircase.

Atop the staircase, they entered another corridor, the door at one end being blocked by something on the other side. "Shit!" Ethan said when the door refused to open. "Come on", Ethan said, opening another door "In here".

Keiichi and Rena followed the ex-FBI agent into the room, part of an apartment. Like the rest of the building, the floor was covered in garbage and broken furniture, one the walls, someone had written "THE VOICES" in black spray paint, while on an opposite wall were the words "OBEY THEM". Ethan, Keiichi and Rena walked into the next room, it to had graffiti on the walls, this time it said "THEY WILL CONTACT WITH FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS". "Be careful", Ethan said, "There could be more of those psychos somewhere around here, be careful". Ethan sidestepped around a corner in the room, followed by Keiichi and Rena, to reveal another doorway, as well as more graffiti: "EAT SHIT AND DIE!".

A loud crashing sound broke the silence, coming from the door. Seconds later, the door was knocked off its hinges, knocking Rena against a wall. A large, muscular man armed with a fireman's axe charged into the room, axe raised over his head, poised to strike. He swung the axe downwards at Rena, who dodged just in time to avoid having her head split open. The axe blade lodged itself in the wall.

Keiichi swung his baseball bat at Rena's attacker, striking him in the back, but doing no visible damage. The man elbowed Keiichi hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and slamming him against a wall. The man then pulled his axe from the wall and moved in for the kill.

Keiichi Maebara saw his life flash before his eyes as the man raised his axe. He saw the horrors he experienced in Hinamizawa, his marriage to Rena, and his escape to America. "After all this, was what Rena said under the influence of that device true? Had he been living on borrowed time?" Keiichi thought. "HEY SHITBAG!" Keiichi heard the voice of Ethan Thomas yell, interrupting thoughts. Keiichi looked up in time to see Ethan knock the axe out of the man's hand with the piece of a metal handrail he was using as an improvised weapon. The axe was flew across the room as Ethan swung the handrail at Keiichi's assailant. The man managed to block Ethan's attack. Ethan kneed the man in the groin, before he raised his left fist, on which the former FBI agent had a pair of brass knuckles. Ethan's fist struck the man in the jaw, knocking him out cold. The man hit the floor with a dull thud.

"Mr. Maebara!", Ethan yelled, "Are you alright?" "Yeah, is Rena OK?", Keiichi said as he got up. "I'm fine", Rena replied as she picked up her machete from the floor. Keiichi walked over and retrieved his baseball bat from the ground as Ethan grabbed the attacker's fire axe, commenting "This'll be a better weapon than that old piece of crap.", as he threw the piece of handrail in onto the floor.

Ethan entered the room behind the knock down door. It used to be a bathroom, but now the already broken fixtures were covered by a thick layer of dust, broken drywall, and bits of wood from a man-sized hole in the wall, presumably smashed open by the man who attacked them. Ethan led the Japanese couple into a hallway ending a stairwell, with more grafitti in it ("WE KILLED YOU ONCE, WE CAN DO IT AGAIN"). The stairs lead down to into a hallway and yet another room. This one has a broken window overlooking the commuter train tracks and a table in the corner with several beakers and a Bunsen burner on top. "Looks like we've got a meth lab in here", Ethan commented. Suddenly, three masked thugs burst into the room. The first on attacked Ethan with a crowbar, which he barely managed to block as the second one took a swing at Keiichi with a 2x4. Keiichi blocked and struck a powerful return blow with his bat and broke the board in two before bringing the bat down on his attacker's head, taking him down.

The third man attacked Rena with a steel pipe. Rena dodged the blow easily. The man raised the pipe for an overhead attack, but Rena was too quick for him. Rena thrust her machete into the man's chest and twisted the blade. The wound bled profusely as the man fell to the ground, dead.

Ethan, meanwhile, swung at his attacker with his axe, but he blocked the blow. Ethan then kicked the man in the stomach, knocking him backwards. The masked man fell backwards and landed on the meth lab table, knocking over the Bunsen burner and several beakers, starting a small fire. "Everyone, out that window, that meth lab's gonna blow!!", Ethan yelled. Keiichi climbed out first, then helped Rena down onto the track, before finally, Ethan exited the building. Seconds later, the meth lab exploded, no doubt killing Ethan's attacker and setting fire to the building.

"Look!", Keiichi said, "Aren't those the guys you were with before you were separated", as he said this, Keiichi pointed to a pair of men some 100 meters down the track. A helicopter flew over Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan, before landing on the tracks. The two FBI agents entered to the helicopter as several gunshots rang out. A walkie-talkie Ethan was carrying at his side crackled to life. "Lets go, this place is swarming with nutjobs!", one man's voice yelled. "Sir, we left Mr. Thomas behind", replied the second agent. "Take off now! That's an order!", the first agent replied. At that, the helicopter took off.

The door to a building across the tracks burst open. A rioter whose face was hidden by a rubber mask shaped like a pig's head raised an Uzi and prepared to take aim at the helicopter. Before he could fire, however, he noticed three people on the tracks: Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena. The rioter with the Uzi prepared to fire at Keiichi when, seemingly out of nowhere, a fire axe flew at him. The axe blade buried itself in the gunman's face, right in the "nose" of the pig mask. He was fell to the ground, dead, instantly.

Ethan ran towards to door, followed by Keiichi and Rena and entered. Ethan seized the Uzi and got out of the door. Ethan pointed across the room to an open guncase containing a .44 magnum revolver, a sawn-off double-barreled shotgun, and a box of shotgun shells. "Get those guns, we'll need 'em" Keiichi ran across the room and grabbed the magnum, and the shells, Rena taking the shotgun and brought them over to Ethan.

The former FBI agent examined the firearms. "Only six bullets in this revolver, and two shells in the shotgun, not much left in this box of ammo either, only four shells." "I'm the better shot", Keiichi said as he took the magnum from Ethan, "I'll take the .44". Ethan then handed the shotgun to Rena. "I've never used one of these before". Ethan removed the safety and said "There, safety's off, now just point the thing in general direction of any bastard that's tying bash you head in and pull the trigger. Oh yeah, if you need to reload, do this and put in more shells". Ethan demonstrated how to break the barrels of the shotgun. "Oh yeah", he said, "put the shells in red-end first."

As Ethan finished explaining the complexities of shotgun operation to Rena, about twenty-five rioters showed up on the tracks outside building the three of them were in. "Take cover", Ethan said, "I'll try and any of the bastards that have guns. As if on cue, several gunshots rang out, flying through the broken window over their heads, or impacting the brick walls of the building. Ethan leaned out the door and fired a three round burst from his Uzi. Keiichi and Rena heard one of the rioter's hit the ground. Less than a second later, Ethan fired another burst, then another, each time picking off another gunman. After leaning in and out of cover three times, Ethan said "All the guys with guns are dead, but there's still about 15 of 'em out there. Lets move now!"

Keiichi ran out of the door and took aim at a rioter wielding a hunting knife advancing on Ethan, who was looking the other direction. He pulled the trigger and let loose a round with his magnum. Keiichi was somewhat shocked by the recoil of the weapon and missed the shot. Keiichi braced himself and this time, he managed to maintain control of the gun as the round impacted the rioter's neck with such force that it completely decapitated him. Keiichi fired on another rioter, blowing a hole in his chest.

Rena meanwhile, was not faring a well with her shotgun. A rioter with a sledgehammer ran at her. Rena pointed her gun at the rioter and squeezed the first of the double-barreled shotgun's two triggers. As she did, her finger slipped onto the second trigger, firing a two-shell burst that, while making mincemeat of her attacker, also caused severe recoil, with her only barely managing to maintain a grip on the gun. Worse yet, she had fired off both shots and had to reload. Rena opened the barrels of her shotgun and reloaded as fast as possible, covered by Keiichi, who shot a man who tried to attack her with an axe while she reloaded.

Rena took aim at the next nearest rioter, a man in a (probably fake) gasmask wielding a shovel with a blood-stained blade. "Come on Rena, you can take this guy", Rena thought as she make sure she pulled only one of the shotgun's two triggers. Rena's attacker caught a face-full of buckshot and fell to the ground. Rena then proceeded to take down a man armed with a crude spear made from a broom handle with a knife duct-taped to the end with a second shot, before reloading again.

Ethan Thomas proceeded to mow down three of his assailants with a long burst from his Uzi, before he spotted a man advancing on Rena with a crowbar. "BEHIND YOU!" he yelled. Rena turned on the spot, holding the shotgun in one hand by the pistol grip. She stuck the barrel against her assailant's chest and fired off a single shot. The gun's recoil was so great that it was launched out of her hand by the force. Rena felt a sharp pain in her wrist. She screamed loudly and yelled "I can't move my right hand!" "Hang in there!, there's just a few more left", Keiichi yelled as he fired off the last round in his magnum into yet another rioter.

Rena drew her machete with her left hand as a final rioter made a lunge at her. The rioter, however, was cut down by a two round burst from Ethan's Uzi. Keiichi ran over to his wife, followed by Ethan. "Are you okay?" Keiichi asked her. "Move over!", Ethan said as he pushed Keiichi aside, "Let me see that!". Ethan took a look at Rena's hand and said, "Looks dislocated", before grabbing Rena's wrist. "AAAAGH!", Rena yelled as Ethan popped her wrist back into place. "Can you move you hand now?", Keiichi asked. "Yeah, I'm fine, but I don't think I'm gonna be using another of those any time soon!", Rena replied.

Keiichi helped Rena to her feet and followed Ethan over to a destroyed rail car that was blocking the tracks. Ethan looked through a gate chain link fence on the side of the tracks. Suddenly, the former agent yelled "LaRue, open the fucking gate!". "Who are you talking to?", Keiichi asked. "LaRue, one of my former colleagues at the FBI, he….. Dammit LaRue get back here and open the…", Ethan replied. "What?", Rena cut Ethan off, "There's no one there." "What the hell are you talking about! I was sure I saw him, he just went into that door over there!." "Never mind that", Keiichi said, "We have to get out of here before more rioters show up." Ethan turned to Keiichi and said "All right, guess we're gonna climb this fucking fence."

Ethan climbed up the fence first, followed by Keiichi, who paused at the top for a moment to help Rena up. "Thanks", Rena replied to Keiichi's gesture. Ethan walked over the door he had seen his former colleague disappear through. He grabbed handle, but the door stayed firmly shut. "Shit, it's locked, how the hell did he get through there?", before adding, "All right, looks like the only way through is across that plank. The plank created a sort of bridged to an open window of a factory of some sort. Ethan went on the plank first and crossed to the factory window. Ethan leaned out of the window and said to Keiichi and Rena "It's safe to cross, come on up. After a few minutes, all three of them were through the window and into the factory.


	3. Chapter 3: Into the Fire

**Author's notes:** **I do not own Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni or Condemned 2: Bloodshot or any of the characters. Also, please note that I have taken a little artistic license with the layout of the locations in the Condemned games and thus they are not intended to be exactly identical to the levels in the game. Finally, on the advice of a review on another site, I have changed my writing style slightly as far as the dialogue is concerned. Now there is only one character speaking per paragraph. Please read, review, and give your thoughts on whether you prefer my new or old style.**

Chapter 3:

Ethan walked into the window of the factory, immediately followed by Keiichi and Rena. The three of them stood in a dark hallway. Suddenly, a dark figure ran across the hallway.

"Who's there?!", Ethan shouted into the darkness.

"Are you one of them?", a voice replied, "Do you make the sound?". The dark figure flicked on a lighter and walked up to Ethan, Keiichi and Rena, revealing himself to be a homeless man in a green coat and wool hat.

The bum looked more closely at Ethan. "You look normal enough", he said, "but it's hard to tell sometimes ".

"What!?", Ethan asked.

"The Dark Blood, the Metal Kings, The Oro", the bum replied.

"What is he talking about?", Rena asked.

"I don't know, some kind of heavy metal band?", Keiichi suggested.

The bum ignored Keiichi's joke and turned to his lighter to illuminate a glyph drawn on the wall of the hallway in black permanent marker. The glyph looked a bit like a letter "I", but with a circle in the middle.

"Here", the bum replied, pointing at the glyph.

"Do you know these people?", asked Ethan.

"Don't want to know them", the homeless man replied, "But they know us!"

As the homeless man spoke, a flaming beam from the roof fell on the homeless man, killing him instantly. Ethan rolled out of the way, landing at the feet of Keiichi and Rena.

As Ethan got up, his radio crackled to life. "Ethan, come in, are you there!", a female voice said through the radio

"Rosa!", Ethan replied.

"You're alright", Rosa replied, "Talk to me, I've lost contact with the rest of the team".

Ethan coughed before he said "Bastards"

"Sounds like I missed something", Rosa replied.

"Nothing I can't take care of", Ethan replied, before continuing, "Why was finding Vanhorn so damn important?"

"Hoping you could tell me?", Rosa said.

"No fucking clue", Ethan responded.

"Hang tight, I'm on my way", Rosa replied.

"Rosa, how will I find you?", Ethan asked

"They've closed off all the roads to that side of town, closest I can get is Stafford Street, can I meet you there?, Rosa responded

"Beats sticking around here", Ethan said before hanging up.

"What was that about, and who's Rosa, and Vanhorn, for that matter?", Keiichi asked

"Rosa's a former colleague of mine, and Vanhorn, well he's was a murder victim the FBI brought me back to help find. I'll explain it later, if we get out of here before this whole goddamned shithole burns down", Ethan explained as he turned on his flashlight and lead Keiichi and Rena down the hallway.

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena into a small room, as run down as the rest of the neighborhood, with a broken desk in one corner.

As they entered, Ethan's radio crackled to life. "Mr. Thomas, come in, it's LaRue." When Ethan did not answer for several seconds, LaRue said, "Mr. Thomas please respond. Look, what happened back there, I was obeying orders, that's all".

"Yeah", Ethan replied, "When that prick Dorland says jump, you jump."

"Now is not the time for that", LaRue replied. "An eyewitness saw someone fitting your description entering an old doll factory with two others, that where you at? Also, who else is with you?"

Ethan examined a dusty old plaque above the desk. The plaque read "Walker Doll Factory, 25th Anniversary".

LaRue continued as Ethan looked at the plaque, "My parents moved here from New Orleans when I was a young boy, I grew up in this neighborhood, I wanna help you out".

"Yeah", Ethan replied, "I'm in the Walker Doll Factory, with some Japanese couple, claim they got stranded in a bad neighborhood, I don't have time to explain".

"Good", LaRue said, "I played in that old place as a kid, knew it like the back of my hand."

Ethan opened a door and lead Keiichi and Rena down a staircase into a large room with a number of storage tanks in the middle with a catwalk above the tanks, and a roll-up door on the north end of the room. The floor was covered in a thick layer of crushed bits of drywall, along with the occasional brick or flake of metal that had fallen from the roof or walls

"Now the first thing you need to do is find a gasmask. That witness who saw you, he said the place was catching fire. That doll stuff is toxic when burned", LaRue said, "What part of the factory you in?"

"I'm in a large room with a bunch of tanks and some other factory stuff." Ethan replied.

"Sounds like the factory's mixing facility", LaRue said, "There's only one way out of there, a rollup door at the far end. The switch to open the door is on the catwalk above the tanks."

Ethan walked up to the top of the catwalk, followed by Keiichi and Rena. Ethan walked over the door control panel and yelled "Aggh the panel has a lock on it! "

"That factory manager couldn't remember more than his own name, so he wrote to combo to the lock on the wall of his office. Should be a small room on the other end of that catwalk."

Ethan entered the room, followed by the other two. "You two, Help me search the room, try and find something written on the walls."

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena each took scanned a section of the walls. A minute of so later, Rena pushed some boxes next to the foreman's desk out of the way and scanned a section of wall.

"Here!" Rena shouted, pointing out a faint scrawl on the wall…. "But it's too faint to read. "

"Move over", Ethan said as he pulled out a UV blacklight, "This should reveal it even if it's worn away". Rena scooted over and Ethan placed the light over the section of wall. Immediately the numbers 17-23-10 glowed in the UV light.

"Good thing you…", Keiichi started to speak, but he suddenly paused and said, "Look, by those windows!". A light shone in a group of second floor windows immediately across the room from the catwalk. A dark figure walked through the hallway beyond the windows, silhouetted against the light.

Keiichi and Rena both raised their weapons and, Ethan, realizing he had abandoned the fire axe and now ammo-less Uzi he had earlier, picked up a monkey wrench lying the manager's desk.

"Watch your backs around her", Ethan said, "We don't know who could be in this place!"

Ethan and the others walked back along the catwalk to the control panel. Ethan grabbed the lock set it to the combination, turning the wheel first to 17, then 23, and finally 10.

The lock came off the lever, allowing Ethan to activate the switch and open the rollup door. As the door slowly opened, a bum walked in saying "There's something in that room, sounds like a baby… but wait it's talking!"

"What the hell is that!?", Keiichi asked, pointing to what looked like a dirty old doll that was walking by some sort of wind-up clockwork mechanism.

The doll walked up the bum said…. No, played a recording of the phrase "I can count backwards, want to see", in high pitched voice. The recording then said "3…. 2…1"

The next thing the Ethan, Keiichi and Rena heard was a loud bang as the doll exploded like a grenade, killing the bum instantly.

"Exploding dolls? You have got to be fucking with me!", Ethan said before he walked down the catwalk before towards the next room. "Watch to floors", Ethan said as he entered the room, there could be more of those doll-bombs."

The next room was filled with metal shelving, tables and factory machinery, all in a state of disrepair, as well as a crate filled with doll battered looking old dolls with nails sticking out of them.

Ethan picked one up and examined one. Rena took a look at the ugly old doll and said, "I'm definitely not taking that home!"

"What?", Ethan asked

"Inside joke", Keiichi replied.

"OK".... Ethan said, "Anyway, I think these might come in useful…" Ethan pulled a pull-string on the back of the doll. "Bye-bye", the doll "said", before Ethan heard the ticking of a timer. Ethan tossed the doll across the room, where it exploded.

"I'll take one of these", Ethan said holding his wrench in his pocket and grabbing one of the doll bombs, "This could come in handy". Keiichi and Rena fought back laughter at the sight of the former FBI agent holding the doll.

"I know it looks ridiculous but….", Ethan replied, but was cut off by his radio cracking to life. It was LaRue again. "The whole factory's going up in flames, you need to find the safety foreman's office and get a mask."

"Where is this damned office!?", Ethan asked.

"On the second level", LaRue responded, "If you come across the ventilation control room, you can use the air duct as a shortcut. Might have to move some shit to find it though."

Shortly after LaRue finished speaking, Rena said "Over there", pointing at a door labeled "Ventilation Control room". Rena, Keiichi, and Ethan entered the room. The room was largely empty, except for a metal shelf, which Ethan pushed aside.

Behind the shelf was the entrance to a large air duct at about four feet wide. Ethan ducked down and entered first, crawling along the duct, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

Near the end of the duct, Ethan stopped. Two men wielding improvised weapons stood in the room, one armed with a metal pipe, the other with knife.

"I think I heard something.", the first one said. "Whoever it is, lets cut the motherfucker open!", the second man said as he waved his knife violently.

Ethan whispered "Stay back in the duct, I'll handle them", before arming pulling the string on the doll-bomb in his hand and tossing it out the end of the air duct.

The oddly shaped bomb landed at the feet of the two thugs. The one with knife picked it up and said, "What the fuck is this?"

Seconds later, the doll said "Good night!" in the same high-pitched voice and exploded violently. The improvised grenade went up in a flash of fire and shrapnel. The blast blew off the hand of the rioter holding the bomb and launched shrapnel into the chest and head of both men.

Ethan exited the duct, followed by Keiichi and Rena. Rena looked at the carnage caused by the doll-bomb and said "Nasty, but at least we didn't have to fight those two".

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked over the dead bodies and down a hallway into a room with a conveyor belt running through the middle.

The silence was broken by the sound of the conveyor belt activating and what sounded by the clicking of some kind of clockwork mechanism, coupled with high-pitched laughter coming from some sort of tape recording.

All three of them knew instantly what it had to be. "It's one of those fucking doll bombs!", Ethan yelled, shining his flashlight towards the floor, "There's too many of 'em to get to the door on the other side!"

The flashlight revealed several doll-bombs inching their way towards Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena. Ethan grabbed a chunk of broken brick on the floor and tossed it at one of the bombs and knocked it over. The doll stopped moving for second before it exploded.

Keiichi and Rena imitated Ethan's actions and began picking off the exploding dolls with thrown objects. But for every one they took out, another took its place. Rena glanced towards the conveyor belt. More of the dolls were entering the room via the conveyor.

"They're coming in through the conveyor belt!", Rena yelled.

Suddenly, Rena heard the "voice" of a doll-bomb mere feet from her. She looked down to see the exploding toy right at her feet. Rena aimed a kick at the device and launched it across the room. The doll landed on the conveyor, about a foot from where the conveyor exited a tunnel and entered the room.

The explosive charge inside the doll went off, setting off a dozen others on the conveyor belt in a destructive chain reaction that looked something like the impact of a cluster bomb. The tunnel that led the conveyor belt into room collapsed from the blast, blocking the doll bombs from entering.

"Well, that takes care of those dolls", Keiichi said, "Nice shot, Rena".

"It was all just luck that it landed there.", Rena said.

Ethan walked over the door and entered the next hall, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

"Hold up", Ethan said, "Don't go any further".

"What is it?", asked Keiichi.

Ethan pointed to a red object on the wall that was emitting a high-pitched whining sound.

"You've seen those things before too?", Keiichi asked.

"Yeah", Ethan said, "And if you've encountered one too and haven't been driven batshit insane, then you should know that getting to close can fuck with your head".

"Do you know what those things are?", asked Rena.

"No fucking idea", Ethan replied, "But I have a feeling they're related to all the shit that's going on in this city. And I also happen to know they're very fragile. Best bet is to shoot 'em with a gun. If you have one, if you don't, well, This'll do".

Ethan raised the large pipe wrench in his hand and threw it at the device on the wall. The object on the wall broke into several pieces as soon as it was struck by the wrench and the noise stopped instantly.

"Come on", Ethan said as he walked towards the door at the other end of the hall. A masked rioter armed with a golf club burst through the door and lunged at Ethan, knocking the former agent over.

The masked man then raised his club over his head and prepared to bring it down on his head.

Keiichi ran forward, baseball bat raised and placed it in the path of the rioter's swing, blocking the golf club as Ethan rolled out of the way. The rioter took another swing, this time aiming for Keiichi.

Keiichi dodged this blow and took a swing at a man armed with the golf club. He struck the rioter in the chest, knocking him back a couple feet and temporarily stunning him, before swinging his bat at the rioter a second time.

This time, the baseball bat made contact with the side of the rioter's head with a sickening crunch. He fell to the ground in a pool of blood.

"Rena, Mr. Thomas", Keiichi asked "Are you okay?"

"Yeah", Ethan and Rena both replied, before Ethan grabbed his fallen attacker's golf club and walked into the next room. The room was filled with old shelves and tables. On one of the tables lay an old TV tuned to a news channel.

"…Unrest in the Trenton district has erupted into a Class Three Riot. There are reports of several fires breaking out in the area and riot activity in the vicinity of Stafford Street. Authorities are investigating the causes of the recent increase in crime and riot activity….", a the news anchorwoman on the TV said.

"Sounds like the riots are getting worse", Rena commented.

Ethan turned away from the TV and walked to a door in the back of the room and opened it. It opened into a narrow hallway with several gas pipes lining the wall. In on another door down the hall read, "Safety Foreman's Office", with an arrow pointing to the door.

"Come on", Ethan said to Rena and Keiichi, "The safety foreman's office is this way."

Keiichi and Rena followed Ethan through the door. Suddenly, a gas pipe at the end of the hall exploded, blowing down the door to the foreman's office, but also blocking it with a stream of fire coming from the gas pipe.

To make matters worse, seconds later, a man in a ski mask armed with a flaming 2x4 charged headlong into Ethan. Ethan prepared to block with his golf club, and stopped the rioter's 2x4.

Ethan's attacker then raised the burning 2x4 to strike at Ethan's chest, trying to set his clothing on fire. Ethan, however, was to quick for him as kicking the masked man backwards into the flaming stream of pressurized as from the broken gas line.

The thug with the 2x4 was set ablaze, his clothing hair immediately ignited, with his flesh catching fire in seconds. The man attempted to extinguish the fire, but it was too intense, within seconds, he was dead.

Keiichi and Rena much less shocked at the scene they had just witnessed, between Hinamizawa and tonight's events, brutal death was nothing new.

Instead, after Ethan asked, "Great, now how do we get past this fucking pipeline!?", the two of them got on to the more immediate issue at hand.

"Over here", Rena said, "Lets try this valve." Rena grabbed a hold of the valve hand and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge.

Keiichi walked over to help Rena and grabbed hold of the valve as well. After much effort, it finally began to turn.

The valve slowly moved forward, inch by inch, with a squeaking sound, before finally, the valve closed and the stream of flaming gas blocking the doorway disappeared immediately.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked through the hole in the wall that was once the door. The room on the other side has staircase going up to a higher level, with a door on the upper landing labeled "Safety Foreman's Office".

Ethan walked up to the door to the "Safety Foreman's Office" and attempted to open it. "Shit!", he yelled, "It's locked!"

Ethan looked around for some other way in, but found no alternate entrance. What he did find, however, was a folding table with several of the "doll-bombs" they had encountered earlier in various states of completion as well as dynamite, timers, copper wiring, electrical tape, and other bomb-making materials. Ethan grabbed one of the "doll-bombs" and two sticks of dynamite. Ethan used the electrical tape to bind the dynamite to the doll-bomb.

Ethan grabbed his field expedient breaching charge and walked over to the locked door and looked down to Keiichi and Rena, who were still on the lower level.

"You two!", he yelled, "Get as far back as you can!"

"Why?", Keiichi asked.

"I'm blowing down this goddamn door", Ethan replied, before he pulled the pullstring on the "doll-bomb".

The doll let out the now familiar recording of a high-pitched "Bye-bye!" as Ethan vaulted over railing on the edge of the landing. Ethan landed on his hands and knees on the lower floor before rolling forward towards Keiichi and Rena.

The doll-bomb Ethan placed next to the door exploded, setting off the two sticks of dynamite attached to it. When the dust cleared, the door, as well as several feet of wall in either direction was blown to pieces. Ethan walked into the foreman's office, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

"LaRue", Ethan said into his radio, "I'm in the foreman's office, these stupid masks better be in here!"

"Okay", LaRue replied, "They should be in a large cabinet marked "MASKS".

Ethan scanned a number of filing cabinets lining the wall, and opened one marked "MASKS"

"Great, it's fucking empty!", Ethan replied

"Okay", LaRue said, "Try the bottom drawer of the foreman's desk."

Ethan checked the drawer. Inside were three gas masks. "These things better work!" Ethan said as he donned his gas mask and helped Keiichi and Rena get their gas masks on.

"LaRue", Ethan said into his radio "I've got the masks, now what?"

"Okay", LaRue said, "Go through the hallway on the north side of the office, there should be a fire escape ladder through the last door on your left."

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena into the next hallway. The walls on either side of them were burning, and in the middle of the hall, there was a homeless man trapped under piece of debris.

"Help… me", the man barely managed to say as he choked and coughed on the cloud of toxic smoke that surrounded him.

Ethan walked over to the man and lifted the debris off the man. "Thanks", the bum replied, "I thought I was a goner for sure", before he walked down the hall and towards the fire exit.

The bum ran out of the door to fire escape ladder, but before Ethan, Keiichi, or Rena could get through, a large amount of flaming debris fell from the roof, blocking the exit.

"LaRue", Ethan said, "The fucking exit collapsed"

"Okay, okay, let me think", LaRue replied, and after a short pause, said "There's a service elevator shaft that leads to the fifth floor, there should be another fire escape ladder there. Should be just across a catwalk and through a room with an assembly line from here".

Ethan turned to Rena and Keiichi and said "All right, were going to need to take an alternate route to get out of here. Follow me."

Ethan opened a door on the left side of the hallway. The door opened to a catwalk over a room three stories below them. Everything in the room below the catwalks was on fire. The catwalk on the level they were on was broken in about three-quarters of the way from the end, below it was on the second floor that had a the other quarter intact, creating a way to cross the room, assuming they could jump the gap between the two catwalks.

Ethan walked out onto the catwalk, to the edge of the gap. The hole between the third floor catwalk and the second floor catwalk was only about four feet horizontally and six to seven feet vertically.

"All right", Ethan said, "It looks like a manageable gap with a running start. I'll go first."

The ex-FBI agent walked back all the way to the door and sprinted along the catwalk. At the last moment, he jumped out, over the fiery abyss below. Ethan's feet made contact with the catwalk about three feet from the end of the second floor catwalk and made his way into the door at the end of the catwalk.

"Come on!", Ethan yelled from the door, "There's no other way across".

"Rena", Keiichi said, "I'll go first".

"What if you don't make it?", Rena asked.

"I'll be fine", Keiichi said as he put a reassuring arm around Rena, "See you on the other side".

Keiichi ran along the path as fast as possible, jumping mere inches from the edge. He landed safely on the catwalk.

"Rena", Keiichi yelled, "Jump across, I'll catch you if you fall."

"You sure about this?", Rena asked.

"I promise I'll catch you.", Keiichi said.

Rena looked back one last time and ran along the catwalk. As her feet were less then an inch from the edge, she closed her eyes and jumped.

Rena flew across the gap, barely landing on the catwalk. As Rena began to fall backwards, Keiichi sprang into action and grabbed her hand, pulling her back up.

"Thanks", Rena said as she breathed heavily through the gasmask on her face. Keiichi lead Rena through the door on the end of the catwalk, where Ethan waited for them.

"Good, you guys got across okay", Ethan said as he walked into the next room, one with an assembly line running from where they stood up to a catwalk on the upper level. Baskets full of the "doll bombs" that had become a familiar sight in this factory were strewn across the floor.

"This looks like the room LaRue described", Ethan said, "Come on, we can use that unmoving conveyor belt as a ramp the top level."

Suddenly, the conveyor belt started moving. Out of a door on the top level, a woman dressed in an unusual manner, reminiscent of some sort of perverse corruption of doll, walked. She wore an old, dirty dress with a short skirt, her hair colored blood red, in pigtails, she had painted her face to make it look like old plastic, the same color as the dolls that had been made into bombs. In her hand, the woman carried a metal rod with a blade from a circular saw attached to the top, painted with red and white swirls to look like a lollypop. The swirls on the saw were broken up with red stains.... blood.

"I think this is the psycho bitch that has been making these doll bombs!", Ethan said.

The woman with the odd "lollypop saw" lunged at Keiichi and took a swing at him. Keiichi dodged and the blade barely grazed his side, only barely breaking his skin.

"Oh no you fucking don't!", Rena yelled angrily as she slashed at the odd "doll woman" with her machete. The woman blocked the blade and struck back. Rena blocked this blow with her machete.

For about 15 seconds, Rena and the "doll-woman" dueled, steel clashed against steel. Finally, Rena managed to woman's weapon across the room. The woman ran away from Rena and up a ladder to the second floor catwalk.

The strange woman in the doll costume then grabbed one of the "doll bombs" from a crate of the devices and tossed it on the floor below her.

"Incoming", Ethan yelled as all three of them scattered to get away from the blast.

Rena ran over to a crate of doll bombs on her level. She pulled the string and tossed it up onto the second level. The bomb landed next to the woman, who ran to the other side of the catwalk to escape the blast.

The "crazy doll woman" tossed another doll-bomb down onto lower floor, the doll bomb landing near Rena this time.

Rena jumped across the room and grabbed another doll bomb as Ethan and Keiichi did the same. Rena armed her improvised grenade and threw it at the left side of the catwalk, near the crate of doll-bombs the woman was using as her ammunition stockpile.

The doll-woman ran to the other side of room as Keiichi and Ethan's bombs landed in the middle and on the right side of the catwalk respectively. The doll woman ran into a door at the end of the catwalk and out of sight as the three doll bombs exploded, Rena's setting off the entire crate of bombs on the top level, blowing down part of the catwalk. It landed positioned like a ramp up to the next level.

"Get back here you coward!", Rena yelled as the woman fled the room.

"Calm down and get moving ", Ethan replied, "Besides, I don't think we've seen the last of that doll bitch."

Ethan lead Keiichi and Rena up the broken catwalk that now acted as a ramp and up onto the upper level catwalk, before entering the door to a hallway.

In the hall, they found yet another stash of "doll-bombs" stacked in the corner. At the other end of the hall was a service elevator.

As Ethan lead the other two to the service elevator, his radio crackled to life. It was LaRue again. "Mr. Thomas, You still breathing?", he asked, "What's your location?"

Ethan examined a sign near the elevator and said "I'm near service elevator 3B"

"Excellent", LaRue replied, "At the top of the shaft is a vent that leads to the alley. How I used to sneak in and out of that place as a kid."

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena walked into to the elevator and Keiichi pushed the up button. Nothing happened.

"Ahhh…come on!", Keiichi yelled as he repeated pushed the button with no response from the elevator.

"Take a look at this", Ethan said, "This fuse box has wires that are disconnected, I think that's the problem." In the box, there were three wires, a bare wire with no coating, a thick wire with a black coating, and a wire with a red and white striped coating, and three numbered connectors.

"But which connector goes to which wire?", asked Keiichi.

Ethan tried a number of different combinations at random, with no success, before Rena interrupted him.

"What is it?", he asked

"There's another fuse box on the other wall, and it seems to have similar wires to this one, only they're connected."

Ethan and Keiichi examined the fuse box, Rena was, indeed, right, the fuse box was fully wired, with the bare wire connected to Connector One, the thick wire with Connector Two, and the striped wire to the third connector.

Ethan walked over to the fuse box on the other side of the elevator and rewired it so it was identical to the other fuse box, before pressing the "up" button on the elevator.

The elevator slowly began to ascend, up the shaft away from the floor the three occupants of the elevator had just left. The elevator was halfway between the two floors when suddenly, several sparks flew from the fuse box Ethan had just rewired.

"Great, it's blown a fuse", Keiichi said, "Now how do we get out of here?"

"Hold on a sec, I'm searching for a way out", Ethan said.

Moments later, Ethan looked up at the roof of the elevator. "Got it", he said, "There's an emergency exit on the roof".

Ethan opened the hatch in the roof and climbed through and climbed through, followed by Keiichi.

Rena had difficulty reaching the hatch in the roof, so Keiichi took her hand and pulled her up.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena were inside the elevator shaft, a stairwell ran along the edge of the shaft, up to a hallway. A sign with an arrow pointing down the hall read: "Elevator Maintenance Storage Room".

"A storage room", Keiichi said, "That should have a spare fuse in it", Keiichi said as he began to walk up the stairs.

Ethan, however, grabbed his arm and held him back.

"What?", Keiichi asked.

"Look above the entrance to that hallway", Ethan said.

Keiichi looked where Ethan had directed him. Above the entrance to the hallway, a now familiar round, red object was mounted, emitting a high pitched whining sound.

"Another one of those sonic emitter things", Keiichi said, as he grabbed loose brick lying on the stairs. Keiichi took careful aim and threw the brick at the emitter. The device fell off the wall and stopped emitting the noise at once.

"Well, that takes care of that", Keiichi said, "Only wish I knew who was putting those things up, and why."

"Who ever it is, they sure done a fine job of sending this city down the shitter!", Ethan said as he led the two into a short hallway with partially burned section of floor separating them from the storage room.

"All right", Ethan said, "Tread lightly, we don't want this floor to give way"

The three of them walked as carefully as possible across the charred floor and into the storage room. Inside the small room, shelves stood in filled with old coils of wire and tools, alongside a folding table.

Three fuses lay loose on the table. "Finally, something that's where it should be", Ethan said, pocketing all three fuses, so he would have a spare if one didn't work. "All right", the former agent said, "Lets get back to the elevator and get the hell out!".

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked out of the room, and onto the charred section of floor.

Suddenly, a ticking sound broke the silence. One of those clockwork doll-bombs walked onto the charred floor.

"Another of those doll-bombs", Rena said

The explosive doll stopped on the charred floorboards and detonated. The floor suddenly gave way beneath them. Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan fell through the hole blown in the floor by the doll bomb to a room on the floor below.

The walls of the room were heavily burned; about the only area still intact was the very back of the room, where a mechanical press stood.

"Is everyone okay?", asked Ethan.

"Yeah", Keiichi and Rena both replied as they got up.

Rena looked up, towards the edge of the hole. Standing above them was a woman in a dirty dress with a short skirt, her hair colored a blood red, wielding a circular saw blade on a stick painted to look like a lollypop. The "doll woman" they had met back in the room with the conveyor belt.

Rena raised her machete as Ethan and Keiichi raised their weapons as well. "Back for more, huh", Rena said, "Stay back, you two, this bitch is mine!"

As though accepting Rena's challenge, the "doll-woman" lunged at Rena with her "saw on a stick, jumping down from the floor above while swinging her blade.

Rena placed her machete in front of her, holding on with both hands as she repelled the blow and struck back. The doll woman blocked Rena's blow, but was knocked back.

Rena moved in, ready to finish off the psychopath, but before she could, the "doll woman" rolled backwards, avoiding Rena's attack.

The "doll woman" got back up and started to furiously slash at Rena.

Rena, however, skillfully blocked every blow. The two women duel for several seconds, their improvised melee weapons clashing like swords, creating a loud clanging sound and creating sparks as machete and saw blade met.

After fencing with Rena for several seconds, the "doll woman" did a perfect back flip, landing near the rear wall of the room. The "doll woman" then let out a furious yell as she charged at Rena, swinging her blade wildly.

Rena rolled out of the way. The "doll woman", however, kept going and tripped on a piece of pipe lying on the floor. She fell face down, her head landing on the mechanical press.

Rena walked over to the press with a look as psychotic on her face as the one the "doll-woman" wore just moments before. Rena made sure the "doll-woman's" head was right beneath the press before she pulled a lever on the side of the machine.

The mechanical press moved downward, applying pressure to the doll-woman's skull. After about a second, her head exploded with a sickening crunch. Blood and brain matter flew everywhere.

Rena took several deep breaths, before yelling, "Nobody fucks with me and gets away with it!"

Keiichi and Ethan stared at what Rena had just done. "I knew you could be scary when you were pissed off but damn!", Keiichi said to Rena.

After Keiichi had finished speaking, Ethan said "Mr. Maebara, remind me never to piss off your wife!"

After staring at Rena for several seconds, Ethan said, "Come on, we can cut through here", pointing at a hallway that was partially blocked by debris.

Ethan ducked under the debris, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

"Looks like were in the maintenance stairs, the elevator should be just one flight up.", Ethan said as he led Keiichi and Rena up the stairs.

Ethan was correct; the top hatch of the elevator from which they had used to exit the elevator earlier was accessible from the top of the flight of stairs.

Ethan, Keiichi, Rena entered the elevator and walked over to the fuse box.

Ethan pulled the blown fuse out of the fuse box and pulled one of the new fuses from his pocket. He inserted the fuse in the fuse box and pressed the "up" button on the elevator.

The elevator slowly worked its way upward, the machine squeaking loudly.

"Come on!", Keiichi said, "don't quit on us now"

After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator finally came to a stop. "Over there", Ethan said, "That looks like the vent that'll lead us out of here, come on."

Ethan entered the vent. Inside was a wide duct leading downwards, with a ladder attached to one side.

Ethan climbed down first, followed by Keiichi, and finally Rena. The three of them emerged into a narrow alley between the factory and another building. Ethan removed the gasmask from his face and tossed it on the ground, and Keiichi and Rena did the same.

"Feels nice to be able to breathe properly after an hour or so in that mask", Rena said.

As Rena finished speaking, a black woman in a dark red leather jacket walked the alleyway with a gun drawn. Ethan ran up to her and disarmed her is one quick movement.

"Damn it!", she yelled, "You scared the crap out of me, Ethan!"

"Rosa, Where's your car?", Ethan asked.

"Down the street, but who are those two?", Rosa responded.

"I'm Keiichi Maebara, and this is my wife Rena", Keiichi said, "We were stranded when a group of rioters shot the tires out on our car."

"You can tell your story later", Ethan said, "I'm ready to get the fuck out of here."

At that, Ethan started walking towards the street, Rosa, Keiichi, and Rena following close behind.


	4. Chapter 4: The SCU Building

**Authors Note: I do not own Condemned 2 Bloodshot or Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. Please read and review**

Chapter Four: The SCU Building

Rosa's car sped through the dark streets at night, out of the industrial district, towards the headquarters of the FBI's Serial Crimes Unit in the downtown area of the city.

"So, Mr. Maebara, was it?" Rosa asked"

"Yes", Keiichi replied.

"How exactly did you run into Mr. Thomas exactly?"

"Well, we heard on the news that a bunch of rioters were headed towards our house, near Fifth and Johnson Streets, burning everything in their path. Rena and I decided to get the hell out while we still could, so I grabbed my .38 and got in the car."

"You took a gun with you?" asked Rosa

"Yeah, I figured we might run into trouble", Keiichi replied, "and, besides, this isn't the first time this has happened."

"What?!" Rosa asked.

"I'm assuming you're familiar with the Hinamizawa virus."

"Hinamizawa?!" Ethan said, "Isn't that the virus that drives people batshit insane, caused a bunch of killings in a Japanese village some time in the '80s?"

"Yeah", Keiichi said, "Well, Rena and I grew up Hinamizawa. We left there shortly after we graduated university and getting married in 1989. Got that gun as soon as I could legally by a weapon, because… well, you can leave Hinamizawa, but trust me, Hinamizawa doesn't leave you!"

"So, anyway" Keiichi said, "Back to tonight. We were driving out of here when some psycho with pistol shot out our tires. We spun out and when we stopped moving, we were stuck in the middle of a crowd of armed psychopaths. I shot the guy with the pistol and few other nutjobs who were trying to bash our heads in, but I ran out of ammo"

"So Keiichi and I got a hold of a machete and a baseball bat and fought our way out of the horde of rioters and into an abandoned apartment complex." Rena said, continuing her husband's story, "That's when we ran into Mr. Thomas."

"Well", Rosa said, "In that case, you can't very well go back home, I'm sorry to tell you this, but the riots have spread to the area you were living in, there are reports of multiple fires".

"Great!" Keiichi said, "What the hell do we do now?!"

"Come back to the FBI offices for a while, I'll sort that out after I've discussed some things about this case with Ethan", Rosa replied.

Rosa turned into the parking lot of a large office building. A sign next to the lot entrance read: Serial Crimes Unit Headquarters, FBI. The lot was practically empty except for the cars of a few night shift workers, being three in the morning. Rosa parked the car in a space marked "Staff Parking Only" near the entrance of the building.

All four occupants of the car exited the vehicle and a walked through the main entrance to the FBI building. Inside was a small waiting room with an empty front desk and several chairs.

"Wait here", Rosa said, "I have to talk to Ethan. Unfortunately this'll take about an hour."

"That's fine", Rena replied, "I could use some rest after what we've been through tonight."

Rosa and Ethan walked off into a hallway, leaving Keiichi and Rena in the waiting room".

After about fifteen minutes, Keiichi got up and walked towards the hallway Rosa and Ethan walked down.

"Where are you going?" Rena asked him.

"I'm gonna try and find out what they're talking about." Keiichi replied, "I bet it has something to do with the shit that's going on in this city. "

"I really don't think you should….", Rena said, but Keiichi kept walking.

"Fine", Rena said, "But if we get caught, it was your idea."

"I don't plan on getting caught", Keiichi said.

Keiichi and Rena tiptoed down the deserted hallway, before Keiichi paused at the corner. He turned his head quickly around the corner.

"Good, no one's there", Keiichi said as he led Rena down another hallway, this one lined with doors, all to rooms with windows offering a view inside. The lights were off in all of the rooms, though from what Keiichi could see, they appeared to be laboratories, probably for DNA testing or something like that.

Keiichi and Rena cautiously advanced to a T-junction at the end of the hallway. Keiichi stuck his head around the corner, looking first one direction, then the other.

"What do you see?", Rena asked.

"Mr. Thomas and Rosa just entered on the hallway to the right. Further down from there are a pair of restrooms, perfect excuse if we're caught. ", Keiichi said, " The other direction leads to an elevator and another corner. Lets move, stay low, try and keep out of sight of any windows."

Keiichi and Rena ran down the hallway, heads low to avoid the line of sight of the windows. The two of them sat down below one of the windows of the room, next to a janitorial closet, ducking to keep out of sight. Keiichi briefly peeked up over the window. Both Ethan and Rosa had their backs turned, looking at dead body on a table. Behind them were many wall-mounted metal cabinets similar to what you'd see in a morgue, probably containing bodies. On the extreme right of the room was some sort of X-ray machine.

"What do you see?", Rena asked.

"Ethan and Rosa are looking at a dead body on a table. Shh…. I can hear them talking through this wall", Keiichi whispered.

Rena and Keiichi both pressed their ears against the wall.

"Preliminary pathology indicates the victim died from a gunshot wound to the head, but more remarkable is the extensive damage done to the chest area. If we look here, we can see that the entire sternum has been extracted. The killer inserted what I would guess to be a large hunting knife, maybe six to eight inches here, at the base of the stomach. He then made an X-shaped incision up to here, at the base of the chin. He was clearly not concerned with surgical technique.", Rosa said.

"Sounds horrible… but why do all that after he killed him?" Rena whispered.

"It appears he only wanted access to the ribcage and…" Rosa continued.

"You said you've found a connection." Ethan said.

"I'm getting to that", Rosa said

"Rosa, I'm tired, and my head is screaming for a drink, so get to the point." Ethan replied, somewhat irritably.

"OK…" Rosa said, "Take a look at this"

Keiichi peeked into the room again and whispered to Rena, "She's showing him a chest X-ray. "

"When I first examined those crime scene photos you sent me, I was a little taken back by the abnormal structure of his vocal chords." Rosa continued, "They're really quite amazing, and unlike anything I've ever seen before."

"So he had a deformity", Ethan said.

"Possibly, does this look familiar", Rosa replied.

"It's an X-ray of my chest, you showed me this during the SKX investigation", Ethan replied.

"Right", Rosa said, "and we noted it odd that your throat area was redacted, or in layman's terms, blackened out".

"I remember but…" Ethan replied

"Why?" Rosa cut him off, "Why is it classified as top secret, and why was the same done to Vanhorn?"

"Vanhorn?" Ethan exclaimed, "What do you mean?!"

"His vocal chords are missing, they've been cut out!" Rosa replied.

"What?!", Ethan asked.

"Yeah", Rosa replied, "and the question: Who's trying to keep it a secret?"

"There's something else", Rosa continued, "I over heard a conversation and well….. I don't know if I trust Dorland".

"Dorland's a two-faced ass if you ask me!", Ethan replied.

"Well there's certainly no love lost between you two!", Rosa commented.

"Lie down on this table", Rosa said a few seconds later, "I want to take an X-ray of your chest, Let's find out if you have the same abnormality."

"Now lie still", Rosa said, "I'll be back shortly"

Keiichi quickly opened the janitorial closet and pushed Rena inside before entering the closet himself. He closed the door just before Rosa exited the room door.

Keiichi and Rena sat down on top of a stack of boxes of cleaning supplies in the closet, lodged between a vacuum cleaner and a bin containing countless brooms and mops.

"What was that all about?", Keiichi whispered, "Sounds to me like someone in the FBI's trying to hide something about the deformity in Mr. Thomas' and this Vanhorn guy's vocal chords, but why?"

"First the crime wave, then those weird sonic emitter things, and now this…", Rena said, "It almost seems like somebody in the government, if not the FBI itself is involved… Kind of like in Hinamizawa…"

Rena half-expected Keiichi to tell her that "there's no way this could be some kind of conspiracy", or something like that, but instead, he said, "You know, I'm beginning to think the same way as you are. The way the FBI is covering up those X-rays, it's definitely suspicious."

Suddenly, Keiichi and Rena's conversation was interrupted by the sound of someone thrashing around inside an X-ray machine, as the voice of Ethan Thomas yelled "More of them those things, sweep right, I'll flank 'em from the left."

"Did you hear that?", Rena asked

"Yeah", Keiichi said, "Sounds like Mr. Thomas is having some kind of nightmare or something."

Keiichi and Rena pressed their ears against the back wall of the closet. Ethan spoke again, this time he said, "Cover me, reloading!"

"Ethan's "nightmare" continued for another 10 minutes, the whole time, Keiichi and Rena having half a mind to get help, but those impulse always being overpowered by their curiosity, and the fact that calling for help would mean admitting they had been spying on Ethan and Rosa.

Shortly after Ethan yelled "Shit! There's too many of them, I'm out of ammo", Keiichi heard Rosa returned to the room.

"Ethan, hold still", Rosa said.

"God, I'm getting tired of seeing shit in my head", Ethan said

"Still having hallucinations, perhaps it's your drinking?", Rosa said

"My drinking is not an issue!", Ethan responded angrily

"Right….", Rosa replied, before continuing "Look, I'll get this processed, in the mean time, Director Farrell wants to have a word with you, fifth floor, corner office, keep your cool."

"Lets wait here a little longer", Keiichi said, " Lets see if we can't find out what's up with those chest X-rays."

Keiichi and Rena heard Ethan leave the room and Rosa getting to work processing the X-rays. She didn't say anything for about 15 minutes, and Keiichi was seriously considering leaving the closet and returning to the waiting room.

However, the sound of what sounded a telephone ringing suddenly caused Keiichi abandon any thoughts of returning.

"What, the mayor, Rachel Mars, murdered?!", Rosa's voice said, "SKX, you can't be serious?!."

The person on the other end spoke, before Rosa replied "Yes sir, I'll inform the director right away."

Rosa dialed the director's number, them spoke into the receiver, "Director, Agent Dorland called…. By the way…. everything okay in there", Rosa said

After a pause, presumably where the director spoke, Rosa said "Dorland told me to inform you that mayor Rachel Mars was murdered. She was found, well most of her anyway, was found in the new museum downtown.

"I don't know why", Rena said, "But I get the odd feeling this is related to all this somehow".

"Come on", Keiichi said "Lets get back to the waiting room, then, what do you say we take a trip to the museum?"

"I though you'd say that", Rena replied as she slowly opened the closet door. The hallway was empty.

Keiichi and Rena cautiously crawled through the deserted corridor, back to the waiting room. Thankfully, they met no one on the way back. Rena laid down on a bench and Keiichi sat at her feet.

A mere five minutes later, Rosa walked out of the hall they had been down mere minutes ago. Of course, she had no idea of that, of course.

"Mr. and Mrs. Maebara…. It is Maebara isn't it", Rosa said

"Yeah", Keiichi replied.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your home. For now, I'd suggest you stay in a hotel, a place that has extended stay suites until you can find a new place to stay. There should be a few downtown that are still open. I'll call you two a cab."

"Thanks", Keiichi said

"No problem", Rosa replied, before she left the lobby, presumably to return to her lab.

Another fifteen minutes later, Keiichi and Rena had been dropped off in front of the downtown Hilton. But they did not enter the hotel. Instead, they walked to down the street, towards the City Museum of Natural History and, so they hoped, answers to what was going on in this city.


	5. Chapter 5: Getting Medieval

**Disclaimer: I do not own Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, or any of the Characters**

Chapter Five: Getting Medieval

Keiichi and Rena walked down the deserted street to the museum, staying in the shadows as much as possible. An FBI vehicle sped away from the crime scene, leaving only a lone police officer and a second man in a black T-shirt with a bull's eye on it left at the crime scene.

"That's Mr. Thomas, Come on, lets take a closer look, we should be able to hear what they're talking about if we hide behind that dumpster", Rena said as she pointed at the corner of an alley next to the entrance to the museum.

Rena waited for Ethan Thomas and the police officer into a loading dock before she ran for the door, followed by Keiichi. Rena and Keiichi got behind the dumpster and pressed their ears to wall of the loading dock. The wall was thin enough that they could hear the conversation going on behind it.

"There's too little blood, it should be splattered all over the place." someone, presumably the officer, said.

Keiichi and Rena heard something heavy being pushed over. The police officer than said, "Looks like the perp used this wheelbarrow to transport the body."

After a few seconds pause, the voice of Ethan Thomas said, "A bloody tire trail leads to the door."

"Certainly suggests that the crime scene and possibly the head are inside. Unfortunately our orders are to secure the entrances and not enter until we get clearance from the FBI.", the officer replied.

"Hmm…", Keiichi whispered, "Well now we know what Rosa meant when she said "most of her" back in the SCU building."

"Doesn't mean dick to me", Ethan responded to the police officer.

"Didn't think it would", said the officer, "Let me give you a boost over that wall"

Keiichi and Rena heard Ethan climb over a wall, before the officer said, "Security's been beefed up after recent thefts, avoid the guards if you, if you have to take one down, avoid using lethal force, do not use a weapon"

"I'll take that under advisement", Ethan said.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to "patrol the north side of the building" and pretend I didn't see you", the officer said.

Keiichi heard the police officer walk out of the loading dock, and crept to the corner of the alley and peered around. The officer was nowhere to be seen.

"Come on, it's clear", Keiichi said.

Rena followed Keiichi into the loading dock. In the center of the loading dock, a headless body of an adult female was laid out on a blue tarp, next to a wheelbarrow. In one corner, there was a stack of boxes lying against a partially completed wall with a gap about four feet tall between the top of the wall and the ceiling, presumably how Ethan had gotten in.

Keiichi climbed up on top of stack of boxes and on top of the wall. He held out a hand to help Rena up.

"Thanks", Rena said, before jumping down into an office on the other side of the wall.

Keiichi and Rena walked out of the door to the office and into a corridor. Only a few lights remained on, barely breaking through the darkness. At the end of the corridor was a half completed gallery, with the skeleton of Tyrannosaurus in the center of the display, surrounded by dozens of display cases, some of them containing fossils, but many were still empty.

Keiichi peeked around a display case. "Shhh…. There are three guards at table", Keiichi whispered, "They're backs are turned, keep quiet and follow me".

Dodging from display case to display case, Keiichi lead Rena to an area on the other side of the gallery separated from the rest of the room by a partition wall.

In the area on the other side of the wall, a saw lay on the ground in a pool of blood. And next to the saw stood a familiar man in a black t-shirt with a bull's eye on the front.

"Mr. Thomas?", Rena whispered to him.

"Mr. and Mrs. Maebara?", Ethan whispered, "What the fuck are you doing here".

"Trying to find out what's going on in this city.", Keiichi replied.

For a moment Ethan looked as though he was about to tell Keiichi and Rena to leave, but he seemed to have thought better of it, perhaps because he wasn't technically supposed to be there himself.

"Fine", Ethan said, "Just stay out of my way… and don't make any noise, I'm about to call Rosa, I don't want her knowing you're here."

Ethan called Rosa and asked about the murder. She replied, "This is what we know so far, the victim is Mayor Rachel Mars, age 55, found dead in the City Museum of Natural History. Body has severe lacerations around the neck, chest, and arms, resulting in excessive hemorrhaging. There's also an extensive tearing of muscle and ligament, head decapitated just below the collarbone, whereabouts in still unknown."

Rosa paused a moment before she continued, "Alright, and now for the note you sent me. Found on the victims body was a piece of paper with strangely drawn eyes on one side and on the other, the acronym "SKX", used by the serial killer known as "Serial Killer X", both written with a black felt-tip pen."

"What!", Rena whispered to Keiichi, "wasn't "Serial Killer X" that guy who was killing other serial killers last year? But according they said on his news he was dead, shot by the FBI while resisting arrest or something like that"

"I suppose it could be a copycat", Keiichi replied.

Keiichi and Rena's discussion of SKX was cut short by Ethan, who asked into his cell phone, "Did you find any fingerprints on the note"

"Yes", Rosa replied, "I ran it through AFIS and guess whose name came up: Leland Vanhorn. I don't need to tell you this, but let's make it official, Leland Vanhorn, AKA "Serial Killer X" or just "SKX" was allegedly responsible for nine serial murders in the metro area. He's nephew to Malcolm Vanhorn and was thought to be dead, killed to a gunshot to the face. His body was never recovered".

"You think Vanhorn nursed his nephew back to health?", Ethan replied.

"I'd say it's the most likely scenario", Rosa replied. "I have a theory: SKX get one in the grill, his own flesh and blood Malcolm Vanhorn nurses him back to health. SKX turns on his uncle and kills him, for perhaps the same reason he murders Rachel Mars. Keep searching the museum, we need more information."

Ethan did not have to look far for more evidence. Ethan walked over to the bloody saw on the ground and turned his cell phone towards the saw.

"Wait, surely a camera phone is not good enough to photograph evidence with", Rena asked.

"This is no ordinary cell phone, it's a standard FBI field kit PDA, newest model, a cell phone, PDA, UV light, high resolution camera, and even a miniature mass spectrometer in one package", Ethan said as he photographed the saw.

Ethan emailed the image to Rosa, who called back mere seconds later.

"That's an odd shaped saw, looks medieval in origin.", Rosa commented, "Get a shot of the handle, would you."

Ethan took a close up of the handle of the saw, before sending it to Rosa, who once again responded quickly.

"Excellent", Rosa replied, "Look at that, a fingerprint, give me a moment."

"Rosa paused for as second, before continuing, "Over 50% of the fingerprint on the handle is compromised by smudging. However, after running it through AFIS, I am able to get a positive match on our suspect, SKX. I'd say SKX is very much alive and is now the prime suspect in the murder of Rachel Mars. "

"What about the saw", Ethan asked, "You said it looked medieval"

"Yeah", Rosa replied, "I hear the museum will feature one of the largest medieval exhibit's in the country. Ethan, find the exhibit that tool came from, SKX was definitely there at one point."

Ethan put his field kit back in his pocket and started to climb up a ladder leading into a hole in the ceiling. Rena and Keiichi followed him as he reached the top of the ladder. The door hole up into a sort of attic area, with a series of plywood panels making a sort of path between several holes in the ceiling.

"Shhh…", Ethan said, "Guard below those that hole", pointing out the nearest hole in the wall. Ethan, Keiichi and Rena tread lightly, silently creeping around the hole in the ceiling.

Ethan looked down a second hole in the roof, before saying "This room's clear" and climbing down along with Keiichi and Rena. The room they entered was small, it looked like some sort of break room for museum employees, with a table and chairs in the center, and refrigerator and a counter with a microwave, a coffee maker, and a small sink along the back.

Ethan walked towards the door to the room when suddenly, he heard a loud crashing, the sound of shattering glass, splintering wood, the screams of a wounded man, and finally, a blade striking flesh.

"What the hell's going on in there?", Ethan asked.

"Sounds like a fight... like someone was killed", Keiichi replied.

"Hold on", Ethan said, "I'm gonna check it out".

"Be careful, we don't what kind of weapon that guy's got. ", Rena said.

Ethan ignored Rena's warning and pushed the door down. The door lead into a large open room with a number of display cases filled with various medieval artifacts. One of them, containing various medieval weapons, had been smashed open. On the right side of the room, there was a large entranceway with a sign over it that read "Gallery of Medieval Artifacts.

In the entranceway, a man stood over the dead body of a security guard. The man wielded a blood-covered battle axe in his hands. The axe man caught sight of Ethan and raised his axe and charged at the former FBI agent.

Ethan calmly drew a taser from his pocket and took aim at the man with the axe. Ethan squeezed the trigger. The electrical cable shot out of the taser and embedded itself in the man's body, before delivering a powerful jolt of electricity that knocked the man unconscious.

Keiichi and Rena walked into the room when they heard the man fall to the floor, Keiichi wielding a nightstick he had found in the guard's breakroom.

"Mr. Thomas, are you OK", Keiichi asked.

"I'm fine", Ethan said as he walked over to the unconscious axe man and picked up his battle axe, before continuing, "I 'borrowed' that taser from the FBI office, but it only had one shot, so take these in case there are more of those psychos around".

Ethan put down the battle axe momentarily to pick up a katana from the broken display case and hand it to Keiichi.

"Thank you for not stereotyping", Keiichi said sarcastically.

Ethan ignored him, although perhaps because of this, he handed Rena a Viking-style broadsword.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked through the entranceway into a hallway lined with suits of armor with an information desk at one end. Ethan turned the corner at the other end of the hall. Around the corner was a "bridge" that ran over a large gallery.

"Look!", Rena said, "It looks like there's a fight going on down there", pointing at the gallery below them. In the large, dimly lit gallery below them, they could hear screams and breaking glass, and the sound of a blade slicing through flesh. At least six figures armed with swords and axes were visible in the dim light, standing over what looked like a pair of bodies.

Keiichi, however, instead looked up above the entranceway on the other side of the bridge. A round, bright red device attached to the wall above the entranceway was making a loud, high -pitched whining sound.

"I think I can explain why this place is crawling with psychopaths, one of those sonic emitter things, up above that entranceway. "

Ethan walked over to a display case about ten feet from the start of the bridge and smashed it open with his battle axe, picking up another smaller axe labeled "Francisca", Frankish throwing axe".

Ethan tossed the throwing axe at the emitter. The blade embedded itself in the center of the emitter, silencing it at once.

Suddenly, A man wearing pieces of a suit of armor and wielding a war hammer walked through the entrance on the other side bridge. He appeared to be trying to steal artifacts from the museum. When he saw Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena, he lunged at Ethan with the hammer. Ethan, not having time to pick up his battle axe, could only roll out of the way.

Keiichi raised his katana and took a swing at Ethan's attacker, missing the man, but slicing the head off his hammer.

The man tossed away the useless handle of the war hammer and drew a short sword from his belt. The weapon-thief swung his sword at Keiichi. Keiichi blocked his attack with his katana before taking his own swing at his attacker, but it bounced off the stolen armor breastplate the man was wearing.

Keiichi and the artifact thief dueled for several seconds, steel clashing against steel, waiting for one of them to make a mistake.

It was the thief that made his first… and last mistake of the fight. Enraged at being unable to score a hit on Keiichi the man raised his sword high into the air, poised to bring it down on top of Keiichi' head, as he yelled "YOU SON OF A BITCH!".

Keiichi, however, took advantage of this to thrust his sword into the man's unarmored neck. The blade went in one side of the man's neck out the other as the wound bled profusely. Keiichi kicked his attacker's lifeless body off the end of the blade, more than slightly disgusted at his actions, but convinced all the same he'd done what he had to do.

Ethan picked up his battle axe off the floor and lead Keiichi and Rena across the bridge, into a small room with still more displays of medieval arms and armor. All three of them kept their weapons ready as they cross the room in and climbed down the stairs into the large gallery where they had seen the armed men standing over the bodies of what, upon close inspection turned out to be two security guards.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena looked around the room, the main displays in the room were a bunch of medieval siege weapons. At the entrance stood a large trebuchet, with an information plaque describing the history of the weapon and stating that this was merely a half-scaled replica. Along the wall stood a number of other catapult-type weapons and a ballista, or giant crossbow, and, on the far end, a crude cannon with a plaque stating it was a "bombard", an early cannon used between about 1350-1500, that helped bring about the end of the era of the castle and made all the other weapons in the room obsolete".

"Nice collection of siege engines", Keiichi commented, "but where are those guy we saw down here earlier.

"It's too quiet in here", Rena replied, "I feel like were being watched".

Suddenly, this loud snapping sound, followed by the sound of a projectile flying though the air broke silence. An oversized crossbow bolt, over five feet long, wedged in the wall, having travelled between Ethan and Keiichi, missing both of them by inches.

"Shit, more of 'em!", Ethan yelled, pointing to the ballista, where the man who had just fired the weapon jumped out, armed with an axe, joined by five other people, all carrying medieval weapons.

The man who had unsuccessfully fired the ballista ran at Ethan with his axe and took a swing at Ethan's head. The former FBI agent dodged the blow and responded with a downward swing, which missed his attackers body, but struck his foot, cutting part of it off. The man dropped his axe and fell to the floor, losing balance, however, he reached down for a dagger at his side and attempted to get up, still determined to murder Ethan. Ethan raised his axe again in response and buried it in the psychopath's skull.

Meanwhile, Keiichi was attacked a man with a short sword, who attempted to slash at his neck, but Keiichi managed to block the blow with his katana. Instead of going in for another strike, the man pulled out an aerosol can with a lighter duct taped to it, an improvised flamethrower.

Keiichi ducked just in time to avoid the jet of flames the shot out of the can, but in the process, he had dropped his katana. The man now rounded on him with his short sword at the ready.

Keiichi had lost count of the number of time he had thought his life was coming to an end that night. Had it been more times than in Hinamizawa? Yet again, he thought he was seconds away from death, however, yet again, he was wrong.

"KISAMA!", Rena yelled, cursing in Japanese as she lunged at the Keiichi's attacker with her sword. Rena thrust her blade into the back of the man about to murder her husband.

Keiichi watched as Rena's blade impaled his attacker, killing the man instantly. Rena may have been Japanese, but the Viking sword she held in her hands was kind of appropriate. When she saw Keiichi's life was threatened, she had gone into a fury, like a Viking berserker of old, striking down Keiichi's attacker, before picking up the aerosol can-flamethrower and burning the face of a man who ran at her with a mace before finishing him off by slashing his throat.

In her single minded rage, however, Rena had tired herself out and was now being approached by two men armed with broadswords. Rena turned to shoot them with her aerosol can-flamethrower, but it was empty. It was Rena's turn to sense death approaching her.

In a flash of blood and steel, Rena's first attacker's head flew off. Seconds later, the second man fell to the floor, impaled on Keiichi's katana.

"I thought…. I was… going to... die….", Rena said through heavy breaths, her heart pounding in her chest.

"I wasn't going to allow that to happen!", Keiichi said, "and if you hadn't dealt with those two going for me, we'd both probably be dead. We're gonna get out of here alive, together. "

At that, Rena took Keiichi into a tight embrace and quietly said "Thank you", before kissing him passionately.

Ethan, however, noticed something that would definitely put a damper on the couple's tender moment, namely a final psychopath armed with a five-foot claymore charging straight at the Japanese couple.

Ethan grabbed the second axe that lay on the floor next the body of the man who tried to attack him. Ethan raised the axe with both hands and threw it at Keiichi and Rena's attacker. The man with the claymore dropped dead as the axe lodged in his face.

Keiichi finally broke the kiss as he turned to see what had made a noise that sounded like a large object hitting the floor. The object, it turned out, was a final psychopath armed with a large, five-foot sword with an axe lodged in his head. The couple turned to the former FBI agent.

"Next time", Ethan said, "can you two save the romantic moments until after we've dealt with the bastards trying to cut our throats! Now lets get moving the exhibit that saw came from has got to be around her somewhere."

Ethan walked towards a staircase on the other side of the room. A sign read: "To Outdoor Statue Gallery, Medieval Tools Gallery".

Ethan led the Keiichi and Rena up the staircase, that lead them into a short hallway ending in a door to the outside. A sign above the door read " Outdoor Statue Gallery, Medieval Tool gallery on far side of courtyard."

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena entered the medieval statue gallery, a large outdoor courtyard lined with effigies of knights in full armor that looked like part of a tomb or memorial, Renaissance statues, and gargoyles that once stood on top of a gothic cathedral.

" There's the door to the medieval tools gallery", Ethan said, pointing to a door at the far end of the courtyard, "Come on, the crime scene should be somewhere in there"

Keiichi and Rena followed Ethan through the courtyard and through the door, into the medieval tools gallery. The three of them were greeted by yet another scene of horror. A display case filled with medieval saws along the side of the room was smashed open. In the middle of the gallery stood a table covered with blood. On the table were number of odd metal objects.

"Well", Keiichi said, "There's the place where that saw came from…. and there's plenty of blood here. I'm no detective, but I have a feeling this is probably the crime scene."

"But what are those metal pieces on the table?", Rena asked.

As Keiichi and Rena talked in the background, Ethan got out his field kit PDA/camera and photographed the crime scene, before sending it to Rosa at the FBI's SCU office

"Looks gruesome", Rosa said through Ethan's cell phone, "But are you sure it's blood, and not red paint or something. Get a sample so we can determine one way or another."

Ethan got out a cotton swab and took a sample of the blood, before opening up as small opening on the side of the "field kit PDA" before closing the small side compartment and flipping a switch.

"So that's the miniature mass spectrometer he mentioned the first time we saw that gadget of his", Keiichi whispered.

Ethan sent the results to Rosa, who replied, "Sample received, and while you're at it, collect a sample of those weird-looking metal pieces."

Ethan took out a pocketknife from his pocket and scratched off a small amount of metal from the pieces, which he placed inside the mini-mass spectrometer, before sending the results off to Rosa.

"Receiving sample data from your field kit now", Rosa's voice again spoke through the PDA, "Lets see, blood type is AB negative, the same as Rachel Mars. Less than one percent of adult's have this type so I'd say we have a match. Now, about those metal pieces, they appear to be thin metal strips and bolt shaped pins, alloy similar to Damascus steel, but not matching any known foundry formulas. Human blood, tissue, and bone fragments are present on the sample."

"Human blood and tissue on the sample", Ethan said, "They don't look like a weapon of any kind, is there any evidence these metal piece came from Rachel Mar's body?"

"Yes", Rosa replied, "The coroner found extensive scar tissue, and bore hole matching the dimension's of the metal piece's in Rachel Mar's bones. However, the metal pieces don't match any known surgical implant, and their locations are not in accordance with standard surgical procedures. Mayor Mars had a secret, and it may have gotten her killed."

"What", Ethan asked, "Like some sort of fucked up masochistic lifestyle?", Ethan replied.

"Whatever it was, it looked painful", Rosa stated, "The pathology report will tell us if she was abusing painkillers."

"I wonder what that's all about", Rena asked, "What interest would a psychotic killer who preys on other serial killers have in some odd surgical implants in the mayor's body?"

Rena was interrupted by Rosa again speaking through the PDA. "Ethan, the police are on the way", she informed him, "meet me in the main lobby, I'll try and get there before they do if I can."

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena hurried out of the tool gallery and into the statue courtyard. Suddenly, two men, both armed with stolen broadsword lunged at Ethan and Keiichi.

Keiichi just barely managed to roll out of the way of a blow from his attacker's sword that would have probably taken his head off. Keiichi turned to his attacker to see him now "fencing" with Rena.

The psychopath with the broadsword kicked Rena over and prepared to finish her off.

"NO… YOU… DON'T, YOU SON OF A BITCH!", Keiichi yelled as he charged at the man about to impale his wife on three feet of cold steel. Keiichi raised his katana and slashed furiously at the man, slicing off the arm holding the sword and cutting a gash halfway through the man's chest. As Rena's assailant fell the to the floor, his sword landing harmlessly at Rena's side, Keiichi walked over to his wife and helped her up.

Meanwhile, Ethan managed to knock his attacker to the ground and finish him of with his axe. After disposing of his attacker, Ethan lead Keiichi and Rena in the direction of a door on the other side of the statue courtyard, back into the medieval weapons gallery, following a sign reading "To Main Lobby".

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena entered the next room, a partially complete gallery, filled with partially filled display cases, stacks of lumber, sawhorses, and tables strewn with tools. Ethan ducked under a piece of plywood propped up between the wall and a display case. Keiichi and Rena followed him under the plywood and into an open area beyond the display case. As Rena crawled through the gap in the plywood, a door on the other side of the gallery was smashed open.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena all turned to see what the noise was. Looking back at them was a sight none of them thought they would ever see: a large man in a full suit of plate arm, wielding a massive battle axe that must have had a five-foot handle. The man ran at Ethan and raised his axe over his head. The man brought down his axe.

Ethan rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding the being hit by the man's axe. Keiichi and Rena both tried to strike the man with their swords, but it was no good, the blades just bounced off the man's armor.

"RUN!", Ethan yelled as he got to his feet, fleeing his attacker, closely followed by Keiichi and Rena. Ethan and Keiichi fled out of the room, with Rena bringing up the rear, onto another sort wooden bridge overlooking the main lobby of the museum. Ethan and Keiichi made it to the other side, however, the man in plate armor climbed onto the bridge as Rena was three-quarters of the way across. The bridge collapsed under the weight of the man in plate armor. Rena and armored axeman both fell down to the main lobby below.

"RENA! NO!", Keiichi yelled as she fell into the lobby.

Below them, Rena got up, and ran as far from the axeman as she could and hid behind a display case. For a second, Keiichi and Rena both thought the axeman was killed by the fall, but they were quickly proven wrong. The axeman got up and picked up his battle axe.

Keiichi ran towards the nearest display case, containing a pair of crossbows, a few rusted partial crossbow mechanisms and several bolts. The crossbows were labeled as working replicas of what the 13th century crossbow mechanisms in the display case would be part of. Keiichi smashed the case with his katana and grabbed one of the replica crossbows, as well as a number of bolts with very narrow metal points labeled "crossbow bolts with bodkin heads, capable of piercing plate and chain mail armor."

Keiichi walked over to the broken bridge with the crossbow in hand. He placed his foot in the stirrup at the front of the crossbow and a pulled the string back. The mechanism cocked into the place, holding the bowstring in firing position. Keiichi then loaded a bolt into the crossbow.

"Do you really think that thing will work?", Ethan asked.

"It has to", Keiichi replied simply, before climbing down from the destroyed bridge and into the lobby.

The axeman, meanwhile, continued his search for Rena, standing mere feet from the display case Rena his behind. Keiichi saw this, he knew he had to act quickly.

"Hey, over here!", Keiichi yelled to the axeman.

The armored axeman turned towards Keiichi and looked him the eye before he charged at him, axe swinging wildly. Keiichi shouldered his crossbow and waited for the man to come closer. Keiichi only had one shot, there was no way he could reload with an axe-wielding maniac on his tail, he had to be sure he could hit the axe man first time.

As the axeman raised his axe, a mere ten feet away, Keiichi took careful aim at the man's chest and held his breath. Keiichi squeezed the trigger on the crossbow. The mechanism released the bowstring, launching the bolt at its target. The crossbow bolt struck home, piercing the armor and embedding itself in the man's stomach. The man dropped his axe and fell to his knees, however, he was still not dead.

It was then that Rena walked out from behind the display case and picked up the man's battle axe. Amazingly, Rena was able to lift the massive weapon, in spite of the fact that the handle was as long as she was tall. Rena raised the axe, and, in one swift blow, brought it down on the armored man's exposed neck. The axe sliced clean through the armored man's neck, severing his head and sending it rolling across the floor. Rena dropped the axe to the ground, breathing heavily, looking tired, but triumphant.

Ethan and Keiichi walked over to Rena's side, looking from Rena to the dead man on the ground.

"Holy shit!", Ethan said as he saw the decapitated remains of Rena's attacker, "Note to self, DEFINITELY do not piss off Mrs. Maebara!"

At that moment, a car pulled up to the museum, less than a minute later, Rosa burst through the doors. Rosa immediately looked at Keiichi and Rena.

"You two, aren't you the Japanese couple who Ethan ran into near the factory, the ones who survived the Hinamizawa incident?"

"Yeah", Keiichi said, "We are."

"What are you doing here? You do realize your trespassing on a crime scene!", Rosa replied.

"Its seems Mr. and Mrs. Maebara decided to play private investigator. ", Ethan said, "Trying to find out what's going on in this city."

"I suppose you're going to take us in", Keiichi said.

"Actually", Rosa said, "Not if I can get you out of here before the cops arrive. I don't trust some of the people in this agency, they seem suspicious, almost like they're…"

"Involved?", Rena finished Rosa's sentence.

"Yeah", Rosa said, "You guys, on the other hand, could be useful. I'll explain in the car, we have to get out of her before the cops arrive."

15 minutes later, Rosa's car was speeding along a highway through the middle of the city, leading out to the airport. After explaining the case involving Malcolm Vanhorn, SKX, and her suspicions about Dorland, Rosa brought up an interesting finding on Vanhorn's body.

"What is it?", Ethan asked, "Metal pieces?"

"No, better", Rosa replied, "Fecal matter on his shoes".

Ethan looked away from Rosa, while Keiichi and Rena simply looked puzzled.

"Let me finish", Rosa said, "The fecal matter came from an endangered deer species found only in the Black Lake National Wildlife Refuge up north. Apparently Vanhorn owned a lodge near the refuge. That's where you three come in. I've managed to book you a flight to the area, should take two hours at the most. If we start with Vanhorn, we should be able to track our way back to SKX".

"Sounds like a long shot if you ask me", Ethan replied, "but all right".

A few minutes later, Rosa had dropped Ethan, Keiichi and Rena not at the airport, but at a dock. Waiting for them was a single-engine floatplane. Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena climbed aboard the seaplane and took their seats in the small passenger area.

What all three of them failed to notice was a man in an FBI jacket in a car on the other side of the docks. The man got out his cell phone and made a call. He said "The target has boarded the plane along two others. Have you set up that cabin along the trail to the lodge for "Plan A"?

"Yes sir, the cabin has been prepared for our "guests", sir", the voice on the other side said.

"Good", the man in the FBI jacket replied, "Have a squad ready in the lodge. In the event "Plan A" fails, you are authorized to go on to "Plan B".


	6. Chapter 6: Buried Secrets

Chapter 6: Buried Secrets

**Authors Note: I do not own Condemned 2: Bloodshot or Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. And yes, I am still here, this chapter simply took a while to come out because this chapter is based off one of the longest levels in the game, and because real life kept getting in the way! **

About two hours into the flight, Ethan received a call from Rosa on plane's radio.

"Ethan", she said, "Your chest x-rays confirm you do have vocal chords similar to Vanhorn's, but more bizarre…"

"Are you saying I'm related to Vanhorn?", Ethan asked.

"The thought had crossed my mind", Rosa responded, "However, I was able to confirm that you do not share blood with that family".

"That's comforting", Ethan replied, "but you still think I'm connected somehow?"

"Yes", Rosa said, "I do"

"Seems kinda crazy, that's all", Ethan replied.

"When you land", Rosa said, "Search the lodge thoroughly and learn as much as you can, it's been abandoned for decades, but I have a feeling both Vanhorns have been there recently."

Ethan turned to the pilot. "How much time have we got left?", Ethan asked.

The pilot did not respond. "Hey buddy, did you hear me?"

Keiichi and Rena turned to the pilot . He did not look in good shape, sick maybe.

"Mr. Thomas", Keiichi asked, "The pilot doesn't look to good."

Ethan, meanwhile, merely looked intently at the pilot as though he was speaking to him, but the pilot remained silent.

Suddenly, pilot collapsed, landing face-first onto the joystick of the aircraft, holding it down. The aircraft went into a sudden nose-dive.

"SHIT!", Ethan yelled as he grabbed the controls in the co-pilot's seat and frantically tried to regain control of the plane.

"Mayday, Mayday, this is flight 224, come in!", Ethan yelled frantically into the radio as he tried in vain to stop the plane's descent.

Keiichi and Rena both grabbed hold of the collapsed pilot and pulled him into the back seat. Meanwhile, the plane continued to drop like a rock. They were now only a few thousand feet above the ground, level with the tops of the mountains that surrounded them.

Keiichi jumped into the cockpit, just as a particularly high mountain peak shrouded in fog came into view right in the path of the plane. Keiichi and Ethan frantically pulled up on the aircraft's controls.

This time, the plane responded rising just high enough to miss the snowcapped summit of the mountain by mere feet. It was not long, however, before a new threat appeared, in the form of a flock of birds flying right into the path of the plane.

The aircraft shuddered violently as several birds impacted the plane. The aircraft 's engine sputtered, clogged with the remains of several birds, before it finally fell silent, leaving the aircraft in a glide.

The plane grew close to the ground as Keiichi and Ethan struggled to keep it upright. They were now mere feet above the tops of the snow-covered trees.

The plane made contact with the ground in a rocky clearing and slid about a hundred yards, before impacting a tree with a great thud and coming to a stop.

Keiichi blinked several times, trying see through the blur that covered his vision. "Am I still alive?", he wondered.

At last, Keiichi's vision cleared. He was still seated in the cockpit of the plane, but he was now facing a shattered windshield. Keiichi crawled through the broken cockpit window. As he looked at the snow-covered ground, Keiichi realized just how bitterly cold it was.

"Is everyone all right?" , Ethan yelled.

"Yeah", Keiichi said, turning to see Ethan getting to his feet in front of the nose of the aircraft, "Where's Rena?"

"Over here!", Rena yelled as she too crawled through the cockpit window. Keiichi turned to her and held out his hand, which she gratefully took.

"Thanks", Rena said as soon as Keiichi had extricated her from the wreckage of the plane.

Ethan walked over to the pilot, who lay sprawled across a wing of the aircraft.

"He's got no pulse and large chunk of broken glass stuck in his chest", Ethan said, "Looks like he's already dead".

"Now", Ethan said, "Next thing we need to do is find out where the hell we are."

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked over to a large wooden sign. The sign stated that the "Silver Peak Trailhead" was one mile to the west and the "Black Lake Campground" was a 1.5 miles in the same direction.

"Look over here", Keiichi said, pointing out the text underneath the directions to Silver Peak and the campground, text that read: "Park Boundary .5 miles east, Black Lake Service Cabin .7 miles east, Black Lake Lodge .8 miles east."

"So, Looks like we're going this way, follow me.", Ethan said as he led Keiichi and Rena around the wreckage of the plane.

The path turned a corner, before reaching a broken wooden bridge over a frozen over pond.

"Hold on a sec", Ethan said, "I'll go first".

The ice held his weight as Ethan walked across.

"The ice seems solid, come on across", Ethan called from the other side. Keiichi and Rena slowly made their way across the iced over pond, carefully making every step so as to avoid slipping or worse, breaking the ice. Finally, they made it back on to solid ground.

As Keiichi and Rena reached the other side of the pond, Ethan received a call on his cell phone.

"Mr. Ethan Thomas, This is Deputy Director Farrell. Going their there alone was not a good idea.", Farrell said through the phone, apparently having no idea that Keiichi and Rena were currently with Ethan.

"It's time you level with me", Ethan said, "No bullshit".

"Yes, Yes, you have every right to question me", Farrell responded, "Look, there are some of us who see you as a threat, the enemy".

"Where do you stand?", Ethan asked.

"I see you as an asset", Farrell replied, "A special tool too great to be wasted, _Rememdium_".

"_Rememdium?", _I don't understand?... Hello?" , Ethan responded, but the line went dead.

"_Rememdium…..", _Keiichi said, "It sounds Latin, a remedy perhaps, but what does that have to do with you?"

"I have no idea.", Ethan said, while Rena simply looked puzzled, "Would it kill him to be up front with me for once?"

As Ethan said this, he walked onto a rickety old wooden bridge across a dry streambed approximately ten feet below. Rena and Keiichi followed him onto the bridge.

The bridge creaked and groaned under the weight of the three people, before, finally, it gave way with a loud snapping sound. The bridge fell out from under them into the streambed. Keiichi got up, his fall broken by a thick layer of snow in the streambed below.

"Rena, Mr. Thomas, are you okay?" , Keiichi asked.

"I'm fine", Rena replied.

"Yeah, I'm okay", Ethan said a few seconds later.

"It's too high to climb back up to the path from here, but we might be able to get back up further along the stream… wait a second", Keiichi asked, "What the hell is that? Is that blood?"

Keiichi pointed out an object about 100 yards down the streambed from them. All three of them walked closer to investigate.

Upon closer inspection, the object was revealed to be a severed arm lying in a pool of blood. The arm was had tooth marks on it, as though it had been ripped off by a wild animal.

Ethan called Rosa on his cell phone.

"You made, how was your flight? Are Mr. and Mrs. Maebara okay?", Rosa asked.

"Slept like a baby", Ethan replied, "and our new friends also okay".

"So", Rosa replied, "What you got?"

"We've found a severed human arm lying in the middle of the woods", Ethan said.

"See if you can determine how old it is", Rosa responded.

Ethan leaned forward to examine the arm. The victim's watch was still attached, but appeared to have been damaged when the owner was attacked. It was stopped at 12:03 AM on February 24th.

"There's a damaged watch on victim, stopped 12:03 AM on February 24th", Ethan said, relaying the evidence back to Rosa.

"In that case", Rosa said, "These remains are pretty fresh, only about six hours old. Get a sample and send me the data."

Ethan cut off a piece of the arm tissue off with a pocketknife and inserted into the mini-mass spectrometer in his field kit and sent the results to Rosa.

"OK", Rosa said, "Skin tissue and blood are definitely human in origin. I'm also detecting concentrations of mineral salts, urea, and amino acids, in other words, saliva, but not human saliva. Most notable is a concentration of arginine vasopressin in the saliva, very unusual".

"But what, exactly is arginine vasopressin?", Ethan and Keiichi asked at the same time.

"An amino acid that naturally occurs in mammals", Rosa said through Ethan's speakerphone, "It is typically triggered by dehydration."

"Dehydration?" , Ethan asked, " But there's snow everywhere" .

"I don't know, maybe someone's been torturing animals, denying them water?", Rena asked, looking horrified and disgusted at the very idea.

"Possible, but dehydration can also be caused by disease: dysentery, kidney failure, hydrophobia. By the way, hydrophobia one of the symptoms of the later phases of rabies, so be careful out there.", Rosa said.

After ending the phone call, Ethan led Keiichi and Rena down the dry streambed. Several hundred yards to along the stream, they reached a fallen tree trunk that had fallen into the streambed.

Ethan used the log to climb up and over the steep sides of the streambed, followed by Keiichi, who helped Rena up the log.

A short walk in the woods brought them to the side of an abandoned cabin in the woods with a hole in the wall that appeared to open into a storage area on the lower level.

"This must be the service cabin mentioned on the map.", Keiichi said, "Lets take a look inside, there might be something related to this Vanhorn guy in here."

No sooner had Keiichi walked in, accompanied by Rena and Ethan, was he greeted by a horrific scene. The dead body of a man in an FBI uniform lay slumped against the wall, the floor around him covered in blood. The man's arm had been torn clean off.

"Well", Keiichi said, "We know where that arm from before came from."

"Rosa", Ethan said into his cell phone. "I've found a body".

"Can you make an ID?", Rosa asked in response.

"The body is an adult male in an FBI Serial Crimes Unit uniform", Ethan said, as he walked over to pick up the dead man's ID. Ethan picked up the ID and continued, "According to his ID, his name's D. Payant."

"I know this name", Rosa replied, "One of Dorland's men. Nobody but you should be up there. I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this."

"Hell of a time to change your mind", Ethan said, as he left Payant's body behind and walked through the maze of steel shelves, old 55-gallon drums and other junk that covered the storage area floor.

The three of them walked along a short hallway and into another storage room. There was a large hole broken into the ceiling. Suddenly, growling noises were heard on the floor above.

"Did you see that?", asked Rena

"See what?", Keiichi asked

"I saw something move through the hole in the ceiling.", Rena replied.

"Whatever it was", Ethan said, "We have to keep moving. Follow me and keep quiet.

In the next room, an even more brutal sight met their eyes. A second SCU agent lay dead, slumped against the wall like Payant was. He had been torn completely in half, his intestines falling out of his body and onto the blood covered floor.

"I do not like the look of this", Rena said, as she grabbed a metal bar from a shelf to use as a makeshift weapon.

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena past the mutilated corpse, and up a staircase with another hole in the wall.

All three of them turned when they heard a growling noise and a scream coming from the hole. On the other side, an FBI agent prepared to draw his gun, but was immediately pounced upon by a massive grizzly bear. The bear's claws were stained with blood and it foamed from its mouth.

"Shhh", Ethan said, just in time to stop Rena from screaming, "See that foam in the mouth? Classic symptoms of rabies. Keep quiet and follow me, rabid animals are known to be extremely aggressive. "

As Ethan attempted to climb up the next step quietly, but the old wooden staircase creaked loudly. The bear on the other side of the hole turned towards them and roared, foam flowing from its mouth.

"RUN!", Ethan yelled, as he ran off, closely followed by Keiichi. Rena sprinted off after her husband, her heart pounding inside her chest. All three of them ran through the door at the top of the stairs, through a room filled with old tables and up, another staircase, into the old living quarters of the service staff.

The rabid bear chased them up the staircase, into the upper floor hallway, ending in a bedroom. As soon as all three of them had entered the bedroom, Rena slammed the door shut and barred with metal bar she had grabbed in the lower level.

Ethan then led Keiichi and Rena into another door, which lead to a bathroom with an old bathtub leaning on the wall.

"Shit", Ethan said, "It's a dead end"

"No it isn't, there's a hole in the wall behind this bathtub.", Rena said, trying to move the bathtub leaning against the wall, but failing to do so. Keiichi walked over and tried to help her move the bathtub, but the tub wouldn't budge. Meanwhile, they could hear scratching and growling on the bathroom door.

"Outta my way", Ethan said as he pushed Keiichi and Rena aside and shoulder barged the bathtub aside. "Come on!", he yelled as he entered the hole in the wall.

Seconds after all there of them had gotten in behind the wall, the bear stuck its head through the hole and roared in rage at being unable to fit through the small hole. The bear then proceeded to smash at the walls with paws.

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena followed the gap in the wall until they came to a second hole, blocked by something on the other side. Ethan pushed the object forward and entered the gap followed by Keiichi and Rena.

The three of them entered a room with a wardrobe blocking the door, a shelf of propane tanks, and, in the back corner, a wounded FBI agent with as shotgun lying next to him.

"Put that wardrobe back in place or you'll never make it"

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena all pushed on the front of the wardrobe and pushed it back into place, before running toward the FBI agent.

"What the fuck are you guys doing here?", asked Ethan.

As Ethan spoke, the rabid bear began to slam against the wardrobe.

"Shit", the agent said, "take that shotgun, it's only got one shot, make it count".

"Wait for my signal", the agent said as Ethan took aim. At that moment, the bear smashed through the wall and into the room. The rabid grizzly ran at the four people in the back of the room. As the bear became parallel with the propane tanks, the wounded agent yelled "NOW!"

Ethan squeezed the trigger. At once, the shotgun fired into the propane tanks, causing them to explode in a huge fireball. The rabid grizzly was killed instantly as the floor collapsed.

Ethan got up after the collapse. They seemed to have fallen into a sort of garage area. Inside was a Fish and Wildlife Service pickup truck hitched to some sort of trailer with a large metal tube about five feet wide with bars on the end.

"Is everyone all right ?", Ethan asked

"Keiichi and I are OK", Rena said, "Shame we had to kill that poor bear though".

For much of her life, Rena had been lover of animals, a mentality no doubt stemming from her childhood love of all things she considered "cute".

"It had rabies, poor thing would have died slowly from the disease if I hadn't shot it", Ethan said as softly as he could while internally marveling at Rena's sympathy for a bear that had just tried to kill them all.

"Wait a sec", Keiichi said, motioning to the trailer attached to the pickup, "I've seen pictures of trailer's like that. I think it's the kind used for transporting tranquilized "garbage trained" bears away from campgrounds and into uninhabited areas."

Keiichi looked into the trailer, the barred door at the back was wide open. The trailer was empty except for a used hypodermic needle lying near the cage door at the back of the trailer.

"Mr. Thomas", Keiichi said, "You might want to have a look at this".

Ethan and Rena both walked over to the back of the trailer and looked inside.

"That doesn't look like a tranquilizer dart.", Ethan said as he scanned the end of the needle with the mini mass spectrometer in his field kit.

"Rosa", Ethan said into his speakerphone, "I'm sending some mass spec results from the end of a hypodermic needle I found in the back some kind a trailer used for transporting bears.

"OK, receiving data", Rosa said, "The needle has blood of ursine origin, in other words, bear's blood, as well as high concentrations of the rabies virus."

"It appears the Mrs. Maebara's comment from earlier is actually correct, someone has been torturing animals, namely infecting a bear with rabies. Be careful Ethan, I don't need to tell you how dangerous a rabid bear is."

"I've dealt with the bear", Ethan said, "In fact, we found this bear trailer in the garage of the same building that the bear attacked us in."

"That", Rosa replied, "Along with the hypodermic needle, suggests that the bear was intentionally infected and planted in the service cabin to attack you."

"Heartless, spineless, bastards", Rena said in the background, "torturing a bear to make it do their dirty work because they're to cowardly to face us themselves."

Rena was interrupted by Rosa's voice coming out of Ethan's phone. "Ethan, I'm picking up a strange radio conversation from your area."

A male voice then spoke out of Ethan's speakerphone: "Sir, we have an unexpected problem."

"This was supposed to be a simple clean-up operation, what the hell is going on?", a second male voice asked angrily.

"It appears to the target is still alive, as are the two people accompanying him", the first man responded.

"WHAT?... FUCK!", the second man shouted, before continuing, "All right, continue with your objective, under no circumstances should any of Vanhorn's library leave that mountain, is that clear!"

"Yes sir", the first man said, " And the target and the two others?"

"ELIMINATE THEM!", the second man ordered, "They cannot be allowed to interfere with our plans any more than they have."

The radio conversation ended, and Rosa spoke again. "Ethan, are you hearing this?"

"What are these guys up too?", Ethan asked.

"I don't understand.", Rosa replied, "This is clearly not a sanctioned SCU operation, but they're using an SCU frequency. Find Vanhorn's library, quickly and carefully."

"Also", Rosa added as an afterthought, "Mr. and Mrs. Maebara, maybe you should sit this one out."

"No, I'm coming with you" Keiichi said, "I didn't come all this way to back out".

"Me too", Rena replied.

"Fine", Ethan said, "But if you get yourselves killed, it's not my fault".

Ethan exited the garage and made the short walk from the service building to the entrance to the lodge.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked through a coatroom and into a stone walled corridor with large deer heads mounted on the wall, at the other end of the corridor stood a man in body armor wielding an FN P90 submachine gun, his back turned to the door.

"This one's mine", Rena said, and before Ethan or Keiichi could stop her, she had broken an antler of one of the deer heads and tackled the gunman to the ground, thrusting the antler under his bulletproof vest several times.

Ignoring the fact that the last time she had used a gun, she had accidentally dislocated her wrist, Rena seized the dead man's submachine gun and pointed it towards the door on the other end of the hallway.

Two more of the mysterious "soldiers" burst through the door. Rena pressed down the trigger on the P90 and swept it across the corridor. The gun spat out a hail of bullets, striking each man several times in the chest or head, cutting them down at once. Rena kept the trigger depressed until the gun made a clicking sound signifying an empty chamber.

Ethan walked over to Rena and said, "I'd recommend using short, controlled burst from now on, saves ammo". As he spoke, he handed Rena several magazines of ammunition he found of the dead soldier's body.

Ethan then grabbed an M4 carbine with an ACOG scope attached, four flashbang grenades, and several magazine of ammo off one of the two men that Rena shot. He then grabbed a Benelli M3 semi-automatic shotgun off the second enemy "soldier" and handed it to Keiichi, along with a large number of shotgun shells.

"Who the hell are these guys anyway", Keiichi asked.

"No fuckin' idea, they don't look like SWAT, FBI or military", Ethan said, "their vests would have been marked as such, not to mention the fact that gun", Ethan motioned to Rena's weapon, "is an FN P90, a submachine gun design to fire ammunition capable of piercing most body armor, is not standard FBI or US military issue."

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena down another hallway, to a second set of double doors.

"I'm gonna throw a flashbang grenade in there, soon as it goes off, we go in", Ethan said, " I'll take anything in the center of the room, Mr. Maebara, you go left, and Mrs. Maebara, take everything on the right. And remember, short, controlled bursts".

Rena and Keiichi both nodded. Ethan opened the door slightly and tossed in the flashbang. The grenade exploded with a blinding flash and a deafening roar, stunning all five men in the room.

Ethan kicked down the door and burst in room first. The room was a sort of foyer with a large staircase in the middle. Ethan fired a two well-aimed shots with his M4, taking down two enemies standing in the center of the room before taking down a gunman on the balcony above the staircase with a three-round burst.

Rena, meanwhile turned the right and surprise one of the mysterious enemy, catching him with a six-round burst to the chest from her SMG. Keiichi, meanwhile, got the final enemy with a shotgun blast to the face.

"CLEAR!", Ethan yelled, adding "Nice shooting, you two", as an afterthought."

"What's that, on the door?", Rena asked, pointing to a door behind the staircase.

All three of them walked closer to investigate. The device looked like an open metal cabinet, such as the kind that held circuit breakers. Inside were a number of control panels and flashing lights as well as two blue cylinders. Labeled "SEMTEX" in large letters.

"Rosa", Ethan said into his phone, "I have found the door to Vanhorn's library, but it's rigged with some sort of device, possibly explosives."

"Nothing is ever easy, is it?", Rosa commented, "Can you give me any more info on the device?"

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena all looked at the device, there were words imprinted on the other side of the cabinet door, but none of them dared open it. The words were visible backwards on the other side.

Ethan read the text backwards into the phone: "The device is labeled "DETM 12X".

"Wow, A DETM 12X, a detonator used to control multiple high powered explosives. Hardcore stuff. Do you see a blinking LED?", Rosa asked.

"Yeah", Keiichi said, "This isn't good, is it?"

"That is a problem", Rosa responded, "That means the device is armed. You have to remove the blast points before you can even think about disarming the detonator. They should be connected to the device by pneumatic tubing. Follow the tubes, and you should be able to find the blast points. You should then be able to simply remove the charges by throwing them out a window, but be warned, the charges will automatically activate once you disconnect them, so you will only have a short time to dispose of them."

After the explanation, Rosa ended the call with "Good Luck Ethan".

Ethan examined the six lines of pneumatic tubing, two went up the main staircase to the upper level, three went through a door to the right and one a door to the left.

"OK", Ethan said, " First we'll deal with the two leading upstairs".

The three of them met no opposition as they made their way up the stairs and into a  
"log cabin"-themed bar with the same wooden walls as the rest of the lodge and decorated with a number of stuffed and mounted deer heads. The bar itself was in the back of the room, with a divider separating a pool table and a series of tables.

On top of one of the tables was placed a blue canister marked SEMTEX, DANGER, HIGH EXPLOSIVE. A second canister was attached to a section of wall near the divider. Both canisters were connected to pneumatic tubes.

"Mr. Thomas", Keiichi said, "You're a better shot than either of us, Rena and I will each take one bomb and throw them out the window while you guard to door."

Ethan briefly thought about taking dealing with the bombs himself, but quickly realized that while he was ex-FBI, he had no bomb disposal training. He was no more experienced in this than the Japanese couple that by a strange twist of fate had become his partners.

"All right", Ethan said, "You just make damn sure you get those bombs out of this lodge or it's all over. "

Keiichi and Rena both smashed the window nearest their respective bombs before they both pulled out one of the bombs at the same time, Keiichi taking the one on the table and Rena the one near the bar. Both bombs began making a high-pitched beeping sound. Keiichi tossed his bomb out the nearest window as Rena did the same. Both bombs flew out the window, into the woods, where, seconds later, they exploded and shook the walls of the lodge.

Almost that instant, two more of the unmarked "special forces" kicked down the door. Ethan fired a burst of several rounds at them, taking his would-be attackers by complete surprise and eliminating both of them.

As Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena made their way back to the room with detonator control panel, Ethan received a call from Rosa.

"Ethan", Rosa said, "Dozens of agents just arrived at the office, I don't recognize any of them. They're asking a lot of questions. I've denied having any contact with you, but I don't think they believe me."

"We have to hurry", Ethan said as he entered to detonator room, "Somebody down at the office is asking Rosa a lot of questions about us. We might have to deal with reinforcements if we hang around here too long".

"All right", Keiichi said, "Should we take the one of the left or the three on the right?"

"Lets get the one on the left out of the way first, then we'll deal with those three.", Ethan said.

"Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena followed the pneumatic tube down a staircase to a metal door labeled "Kitchen".

"All right, As soon as this flashbang goes off, we go in", Ethan said as he opened the door slightly and tossed a flashbang grenade into the room. As soon as the grenade went off, Ethan kicked the door open.

Ethan opened fired on a pair of stunned enemies immediately in front of them, while Rena turned right and fired a short burst from her P90, taking down another enemy "soldier" next to a refrigerator in the left of the room.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this", Rena said.

Shortly after the initial gun battle, two more enemies burst into the kitchen from a door on the other side, with guns raised. The two enemy agents fired their weapons, only barely missing Rena and hitting Ethan in the arm as they dove for cover behind a counter.

The gunmen did not, however, notice Keiichi, who raised his Benelli M3 shotgun and shot the first enemy soldier in the side of the head, dropping him instantly. The second soldier turned on the spot to investigate the cause of his partner's death, only to be greeted by a Japanese man in civilian clothing, wielding a semi-automatic combat shotgun. Keiichi squeezed the trigger and the gun let off a loud report as the enemy soldier's face practically exploded.

Keiichi turned away from the remains of the two enemies, slightly disgusted at what he was forced to do, but his feelings of disgust were quickly overridden by concern for his wife, and indeed, for his new ally, Mr. Ethan Thomas.

"Rena!", Keiichi yelled for what must have been for about the twentieth time since he had gotten himself involved in this mess, "Mr. Thomas, are you OK?"

"I'm fine", Rena replied, "But I think Mr. Thomas was hit".

"They only grazed my arm", Ethan said, showing a gash no deeper than a common cut where a bullet had just barely made contact with the former agents' arm.

Ethan and Rena got up and all three of them reloaded their weapons before they walked into the next room, a small, wooden room with several tables and a large door that lead to a boat house which opened onto Black Lake, which was currently iced over. The third explosive charge was attached to a large wooden support beam.

"Watch the door", Ethan said, "I'll take this one."

Ethan seized the bomb and tossed it out a window in the side of the boathouse. The bomb landed on the iced over lake with such force that it blasted a hole in the ice.

Keiichi and Rena waited a couple minutes for enemy soldiers to burst through the door in response.

Finally, Ethan said, "I don't think they're coming. Stay alert, they might be setting up an ambush somewhere else in the lodge. Ethan turned to exit the room, but before he could open the door back into the kitchen, something caught Rena's eye.

"Look", she said, "There's something written on the wall and… are those drawings pinned up above it?"

All three of them took a closer look at the wall. The words "I WILL BECOME ONE OF THEM. MY UNCLE SAVED ME TO RISE AGAIN. THE ORO AWAITS ME" were written on the wall. Above it were sketches of metal pieces similar to the one's found in the museum.

"Rosa", Ethan said into his speakerphone, "I'm sending you a picture. Can you decipher the meaning of these engravings"

Ethan took a photo the writing on the wall and sent it to Rosa.

"OK", Rosa replied, "The phrase my uncle saved me to rise again seems to confirm that Vanhorn brought SKX back to the lodge to recover from his injuries. He makes mention of an organization called the Oro. I've never heard of them, I'll look into it. These sketches off the side are a bit more unsettling. They depict metal pieces similar to the ones ripped from Rachel Mar's body. You're on to something, keep looking."

"The Oro", Rena said, "Didn't that bum we met by the doll factory mention an organization called the Oro"

"Yeah, he did", Keiichi said, "He said that we don't know them… but they know us".

"Sounds conspiratorial", Ethan said, "But the only sources even referring to the Oro are the ramblings of a bum and serial killer. But we can talk about it later, we've got to defuse those bombs before they level this whole place."

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena returned to the room with the detonator control panel and followed the three cables leading down a hallway to the right. The hallway led to a pair of wooden double doors.

Ethan stopped at the double doors and got out a flashbang grenade and threw the grenade into the room. Keiichi and Rena ran into the room and opened fire, each cutting down one of the two enemies in the room.

After eliminating the two enemies, Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan looked around the room in search of any bombs that might be in the room. The room was centered around a large staircase up to a higher floor, with a number of wooden pillars in the room.

The cables connecting the bombs to the detonator lead up to the second level, Where, attached to two pillars flanking the staircase were a pair of the two familiar blue tubes of explosives.

"We'll take these two", Keiichi said, "Watch our backs"

Keiichi and Rena each grabbed a bomb and tossed it out a nearby window. Both of the explosive devices detonated in an open field outside the lodge.

"All right", Keiichi said, "Only one left".

Keiichi was interrupted by the sound of the radio on the bodies of one of the dead enemies crackling to life.

"Team Five, both the bombs by the west staircase went off. What the hell is going on in there?", the voice on the radio asked, " Team Five respond"

After several seconds, the voice on the other side of the radio said, "Damn it, they must be in here, stack up, get a flashbang in there. Breach on my mark!"

"Quickly, get behind the pillars and plug your ears!", Ethan said as hid behind on of the large pillars on the upper floor, "Do not fire until I tell you too".

Keiichi and Rena both nodded and got behind a pillar on the upper level balcony of the stairs"

Seconds later, a door open a crack and one of the enemy "soldiers" on the other side tossed a flashbang into the room. The grenade exploded with a blinding flash and deafening roar that would have blinded and deafened the occupants had they not braced themselves.

Keiichi heard the grenade go off, almost unbearably loud even through plugged ears. Five of the mysterious enemies burst through the door. The five "soldiers looked around the lower level of the room.

"Lower level looks clear sir", one of the enemies said.

At that moment, Ethan yelled "NOW!" and leaned out from cover, M4 carbine at the ready.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena all opened fire on the enemy. Ethan's M4, Keiichi's Benelli M3, and Rena's P90 all spat a hail of fire and lead at the surprised enemy troops. Riddling all of them with multiple bullets. Within seconds, all of the enemies were dead.

"Reload your weapons and get moving", Ethan said as he reloaded his M4, turning to Keiichi and Rena, who were still standing there, surprised that they had taken part in the successful ambush of a squad of highly trained enemy forces. "We've still got one more bomb to defuse. Then we can open that library and find out what these guys are so keen on hiding."

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena onwards, following the detonator cord into a door that labeled "Lodge Rooms 300-312". Ethan burst into the hallway, a short wooden walled corridor with a hole in the floor about a quarter of the way down. Ethan's sudden entry surprised a lone enemy soldier in the hall and Ethan eliminated him down with a three round burst from his carbine, putting two rounds in the enemy's chest and one in his head. Seconds after Ethan disposed the hostile soldier, a burst of gunfire came up from the floor, narrowly missing Ethan.

"Look out, one in the hole below!", Ethan yelled.

Rena immediately raised her P90 and fired a burst down the hole, causing the enemy soldier to crumple to the ground dead. After waiting a few seconds to see if the more enemies would show up, Ethan said, "Looks clear to me, follow me and be careful, were going to have to cross the hole to get to the next charge."

Ethan again took the lead, carefully stepping across the foot-wide section of intact flooring on the side of the roughly four-foot by four-foot gap in the floor. Keiichi and Rena followed him, crossing without incident.

"Nice to make it across a gap without someone almost falling ", Rena commented.

Ethan, meanwhile, had followed cord to the doorway to one of the rooms. "The last bomb must be in here."

"All right", Keiichi said eagerly, "Lets disarm it, search the library, and get out of this rundown old lodge."

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena entered the lodge room, it was, or had been, furnished in the same "log cabin" décor as the rest of the lodge, with battered-looking wooden walls and furniture, the frame of a double bed, an old TV on the table opposite the bed, and a bathroom with fixtures that had certainly stopped functioning long ago.

Ethan scanned the room for the device, spotting it placed about a foot from the floor on the far side of the room. Suddenly, Ethan heard a vehicle moving on the snowy ground outside the lodge. Ethan looked out the window and spotted an armored truck painted the same blue color as police and FBI vehicles, but without any markings. A man opened a hatch in the roof of the truck and unfolded a hidden belt-fed machine gun as several heavily armed enemy "soldiers" piled out of the back of the truck.

The heavy machine gun and the armored truck only confirmed what Ethan already knew: "These guys were not SCU".

"Get down", Ethan said, pushing Keiichi and Rena took the floor. "They've got a truck with a mounted machine gun outside", Ethan said

The machine gunner and the other enemies opened fire on the room, sending a hail of bullets through the window and walls, just over Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena's heads. Pieces of shattered glass and splintered wood fell on their backs the relentless barrage of automatic weapons fire began to blow apart the window glass and wooden paneling on the walls.

Rena reached over for the last remaining flashbang grenade on Ethan's belt. "What the hell are you doing?", asked Ethan, but before he could intervene, Rena had tossed the grenade out the window.

The flashbang grenade landed next to the truck and went off a blinding flash and a deafening bang. The enemy guns fell silent, their wielders stunned by the painfully intense sound and light. Rena took this opportunity to yank the bomb off the wall of the room. The explosive device emitted a now-familiar beeping sound, signaling that it would explode in a few seconds. Rena tossed the bomb through the window, hoping it would land near her target.

The bomb landed exactly where Rena had hoped, hitting the ground right next to the enemy armored truck.

"What the hell just happened!", one of the enemy "soldiers" on the ground said as he recovered from the effects of the flashbang, " Wait a sec, what's that beeping sound."

"It's a bomb, ru…..", the second man said. His words were cut short, however by a thunderous roar as the bomb exploded in a ball of fire and a powerful blast that blew apart the armored truck and shook the walls of the lodge. Flaming fragments of the truck were hurled into the air as the explosion vaporized those nearest to the bomb and simply riddled the rest with fragments of the destroyed vehicle. The entire enemy squad was wiped out.

Several seconds after the blast, Ethan got up, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

"Mrs. Maebara, Did I ever tell you", Ethan said, "You are fucking batshit insane…. and both your husband and I owe our lives to that."

"You might have mentioned it", Rena replied.

All three of them looked out the window to inspect the damage. The armored truck was now nothing but a burning mass of twisted metal, and most of the enemy soldiers were nothing more than blood red stains on the snow.

Ethan turned away from the scene of devastation after a few seconds and called Rosa on his cell phone.

"Rosa", he said, "I've dealt with all of the bombs."

"Get back to the detonator now!", Rosa replied, "Once all the devices are removed, the countdown for the main charge attached to the detonator will trigger. I should be able to instruct you on how to disarm it you get there in time. Hurry!"

As soon as Ethan heard the message, he hurried out of the room at a run, Keiichi and Rena in his wake.

The three of them retraced their steps back to the room with the central detonator attached to the library door. Ethan ran across the room to the detonator, quickly followed by Keiichi and Rena.

Ethan took a look at the detonator and spoke into his speakerphone. "Rosa, I'm at the detonator and your right, it's counting down." As he spoke, the digital display counted down past one minute.

"OK, describe the device to me", Rosa said, "There are a few possible configurations. First off, describe the keypad and the any flashing lights you see."

"There's a 16-button keypad with three flashing lights above it", Ethan replied.

"Forty-five seconds", Keiichi said, counting down the remaining time on the detonator.

"OK, Rosa replied, there should be a motherboard with some wires, and some canisters of explosives, I need to know how many and the length of the wires to determine the configuration of the bomb.

"There's two canisters", Ethan replied, "The motherboard has two long wires and two short ones"

"Finally", Rosa said, "There should be two batteries attached by a cable on either side of the detonator."

"Thirty seconds", Keiichi said, "I hope work this out quickly!"

"The batteries both say 120/12v. The one on the right had a longer cable".

"OK", Rosa said, you need to cut the right wire".

Ethan pulled a Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket and opened it to the wire cutter tool as the clock counted down past twenty seconds.

Before he could get the wire cutter open, however, Rena stuck the barrel of her P90 right up against the wire and squeezed the trigger. The gun spat out a single 5.7mm bullet, which shot straight through the cable, severing it instantly, before continuing through the door.

"Ethan", Rosa said, "I heard a gunshot, are you OK?".

"I'm fine, and so are Mr. and Mrs. Maebara", Ethan said, "Mrs. Maebara just shot the wire in half, the detonator's been deactivated."

"Not the method I'd have used", Rosa said, "But it worked. Now, lets see with these guys were so desperate to hide."

Ethan opened the door into the library and entered, followed by Keiichi and Rena. The door lead onto the upper level of the library, which was in a state of disrepair, the shelves damaged and covered in dust. Books were strewn everywhere. The staircase down the lower level had collapsed about halfway down. Standing on a table on the lower level was … "A modern computer?", Ethan said, "This lodge was abandoned decades ago. It must be Vanhorn's."

Ethan climbed down to the lower level, followed by Keiichi and Rena and walked over to Vanhorn's computer. Ethan turned on the computer, immediately, a text box appeared on the screen, along with the words "What makes me special?"

Ethan got out his phone and made a call to Rosa. "Rosa", Ethan asked, "I've found Vanhorn's computer, it's asking me what makes him special."

"Sounds like a password", Rosa replied.

"I think this is talking about the abnormality you found in Vanhorn's vocal cords", Ethan replied.

"Sounds plausible", Rosa said, "Try it out and call me back if you run into any more trouble".

Ethan typed the words "Vocal Cords" and pressed Enter. The computer opened a video file showing Vanhorn in the very room they were standing in now.

"Hello Ethan", Vanhorn said in the video, "My future is uncertain, so I leave this message to you. I made a promise to your parents long ago, but under the circumstances I must break that promise."

As Vanhorn's message played, a picture of Ethan's parent's appeared across the screen.

"Your life, the real truth, was never to be revealed", Vanhorn continued, "But times have changed, and I fear danger has come to you like it has come to me."

The image in the slideshow changed to a newspaper article about the murder of a couple by the last name of Thomas. "Ethan's parents", Keiichi and Rena realized as Vanhorn said "Your parents defected from the Oro, they were hunted down and killed. Your identity remained a secret, only I knew of your existence".

At the mention of the Oro, all three of them listened even more intently then before, hoping to hear something that would shed light on the mysterious organization and where they fit in to the mystery of everything that is going on in the city.

"But that is no longer the case", Vanhorn said, "The Oro has reached new levels of power, and they suspect your potential. They will, no doubt, see you as a threat".

"My potential?", Ethan whispered, sounding puzzled. So far, this video had raised more questions than answers.

"I know foster homes were tough on you", Vanhorn said, " But it was necessary to maintain anonymity. I hope you'll understand that I did my best."

The image on the slideshow changed to an image of Leland Vanhorn, Malcolm Vanhorn's nephew, better known as "Serial Killer X". As the image of SKX appeared, Vanhorn said "To complicate matters, my nephew, the man you know as SKX, just recently found hope in the Oro. This was never my intention, in fact, I've spent most of my life opposing the Oro. They were responsible for the death of my wife and child so many years ago."

The image in the slideshow switched to another image of a group of mysterious masked men. "Were these actual members of the Oro?", All three of them wondered as Vanhorn continued, "This put my nephew and I add odd, resulting in the current state of our affairs. He will stop at nothing to become one of them, and this is why our paths are crossing once again. Be careful Ethan, the Oro's power is intoxicating…"

The video was interrupted abruptly by the sound of gunshots. The computer shattered as several bullets impacted it. Ethan, Keiichi and Rena grabbed their guns and returned fire, cutting down several of the armed men they were now sure were a corrupt SCU unit involved with the mysterious organization known as the Oro.

Suddenly, a wall on the lower level was smashed open. All three of them turned on the spot, guns raised.

A large vehicle with wide tracks for driving on snow has rammed down the wall. From inside, an African American man in an SCU uniform yelled "Mr. Thomas and you two, get in."

Keiichi opened the door to the vehicle, allowing Rena to enter before climbing in himself. As Ethan climbed aboard, more Oro "soldiers" entered the room. Ethan leaned out the side of the vehicle and fired at them as the vehicle backed away from the wall.

"Thanks for getting us out of there", Keiichi said.

"Your welcome", the driver of the tracked vehicle said, "Name's Pierce LeRue, by the way".

"LeRue..", Keiichi said, "Your Mr. Thomas' former colleague, you helped us get through that doll factory. My name's Keiichi Maebara, by the way, and this is my wife Rena.

"You must be the Japanese couple Ethan ran into near the commuter tracks." , LeRue said.

"Yes, we are", Rena replied, "By the way, how did you know where we were?"

"I heard your pilot didn't check in, and back at the office, I noticed bunch a SWAT guys in unmarked uniforms and vans were heading up in that direction", LeRue said, "So I figured I'd make sure you and Mr. Thomas were O.K. Anyway, how'd you end up working with Mr. Thomas?"

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena spent the next few minutes explaining the previous night's events to LeRue. When they had finished, Ethan got out his phone and called Rosa to explain what he had found out from Vanhorn's video.

When Ethan had finished, Rosa said "Dorland's agents are everywhere. I'm afraid to step outside my lab. If they find out I've been helping you, I don't know what they'll do."

"What about Farrell?", Ethan asked.

"Nobody knows where he is. He's just… gone.", Rosa replied, "Right now Dorland and his agents are acting as though nothing is out of the ordinary. The commissioner's here, and he and Dorland are acting like old college buddies. I mean, the city is crumbling around us: riots, fires, murders, and now, this? What's going on? Something gives me the feeling something really bad is about to happen."

"I'm sure there's an explanation for all this.", Ethan said, "Anyway, why's the commissioner there?"

"Apparently they found him.", Rosa replied.

In the background, the lodge exploded in a thunderous roar. The mysterious unmarked SWAT units had successfully replaced the charges and blown up the lodge.

Keiichi and Rena jumped at the sound of the explosion and turned around the see a column of black smoke where the lodge once stood. Ethan, however, ignored the explosion and said "Found who?", into the phone.

"SKX", Rosa said, "Apparently they found him in an old bowling alley in the Trenton District. As wild as this may sound SKX can help us. Speak to him, ask him why all this is happening."

"If he's got something to say, I'll get it out of him!", Ethan said.

"Dorland's men aren't letting anyone near the scene", Rosa said.

"Leave that to me", LeRue responded, "I can get us in".

"How do I know your not working with Dorland right now!", Ethan shouted.

"I've taken my last order from that asshole!", LeRue replied.

"LeRue is the only agent I trust right now", Rosa said, "There's no one else".

Rena walked close enough to be heard in Ethan's speakerphone. "You have me and Keiichi, we've come this far, we're stay with this until the end".

"You to do realize that SKX… and Dorland for that matter are both extremely dangerous. You do know what you're getting yourselves into", Rosa responded.

"We know exactly what we're dealing with", Keiichi replied, "and we haven't changed our minds, It's just like Hinamizawa, were stay with you until we find out who these Oro people are, and put an end to whatever they're doing to this city."


	7. Chapter 7: Serial Killer X

**I do not own Condemned 2: Bloodshot or Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni.**

**Author's Note: I have been unable to update in a while due to real life getting in the way. Sorry for any inconvenience. **

Chapter Seven: Serial Killer X

FBI agent Pierce LeRue crept over to an abandoned car and a pile of other junk in front of a dilapidated bowling alley in the Trenton District closely followed by Ethan Thomas and Keiichi and Rena Maebara. In front of the car was a bus marked FBI SCU, guarded by three agents armed with automatic weapons.

"They're holding SKX in the bus", LeRue said, " We need to act fast before they take him to SCU, I'll distract the two agents while you sneak in."

"What about the guy inside?", Ethan asked.

"Your call", LeRue replied, "But whatever you do, do it quietly."

LeRue walked up to one of the guards and started a conversation about rumors of chaos near the Black Lake Wildlife Refuge.

Ethan, meanwhile, signaled for Keiichi and Rena to stay where they were while he snuck up on each of the three guards, grabbed them from behind, and knocked them unconscious.

"Damn", LeRue said, "I guess that's one way to sneak onto a bus."

Keiichi and Rena followed Ethan onto the bus. In a barred-off section in the back of the bus, a man with a shaved head and an "X" carved into his forehead sat at the back of the bus. Ethan opened the barred door the caged-off section and walked up to Serial Killer X.

"Why did you kill your uncle!", Ethan asked SKX.

"He refused to cooperate", the serial killer replied.

"What about the mayor?", Ethan yelled at SKX, "Did you kill her for the same reason?"

Leland "SKX "Vanhorn turned his head to face Ethan, in the process, revealing that his entire right cheek was blown away by a gunshot wound.

"Jesus!", Ethan yelled.

"How's the finger?", SKX asked, "Miss it?".

Ethan raised his left hand to his face, revealing that he was missing his index finger on that hand.

"I never noticed he was missing a finger", Rena commented.

"Neither had I", Keiichi said, "But I suppose your bound to miss things if you've been almost constantly fighting for your life. ".

"Do you think of me when you go to scratch?", SKX asked Ethan, "Because I think of you every time I look in the mirror."

"Answer my question you sick bastard", Ethan said, "Or the fingers you left me will wrap around your neck!"

Without warning, Ethan did just that, seizing SKX by the neck and yelling "Answer Me!"

"Mr. Thomas, are you sure…", Keiichi began, but he was interrupted when SKX choked "Such power".

"The Oro?", Ethan asked.

"Of course the Oro", SKX responded.

"Why kill Vanhorn and the mayor?", Ethan asked.

"Their bodies possessed the Oro's secret, it was necessary", SKX replied.

"The Oro, who are they, where can I find them?", Ethan asked.

Suddenly, the sounds of crashing, banging, and gunfire were heard outside, and LeRue said "We need to get out of here, pronto. Ethan turned to leave the bus when it happened. SKX got up from the bench and punched Ethan in the face. Keiichi and Rena tried to stop him, but SKX simply elbowed them out of the way as he ran to the drivers seat of the bus and turned the key, which was still in the ignition.

SKX crashed the bus into a pile of debris before fleeing out the side door.

"Shit!", Ethan yelled, "LeRue!, Mr. and Mrs. Maebara?"

"Were fine", Keiichi and Rena replied as LeRue responded "I'm fine, go after him , he's getting away."

Ethan grabbed an M4 carbine off one of the FBI agents he had knocked unconscious earlier, the man had now been run over by SKX's bus, lying in a pool of blood.

Ethan turned the corner around the side of a debris pile and saw SKX run around a corner, into the abandoned bowling alley. Four armed thugs ran out from the bowling alley, two of them carrying handguns, one armed with a lever action hunting rifle, and the fourth, merely wielding a bowling pin like a club.

Ethan took fired three well-aimed bursts from the M4, picking off the three gunmen. Ethan tried to fire on the man with bowling pin, but, instead of the report of the rifle, only the click of an empty chamber was heard.

"Shit!" Ethan said, before he seized the carbine by the barrel and struck the man over the head with the butt of the gun.

Ethan tossed away the now empty M4 and grabbed the lever action rifle off the body of one of the dead gunmen. He checked the ammo, only five rounds, before tossing the two .22 caliber pistols to Keiichi and Rena. "It's only a .22, so it might take a few body shots to take down a target, so go for the head if you can" Ethan said, "Unfortunately the bastards never carry enough ammo with 'em, so we'll be back to swing around pipes and bits a wood in a bit!"

In response to Ethan's statement, Rena picked up a bowling pin off one of the dead thugs and held it in her left hand, while she carried the .22 handgun in her right, vaguely reminiscent of a pirate dual wielding a pistol and cutlass.

Ethan's speakerphone came to life. "Ethan, come in", Rosa said, " LeRue's not responding, what's happening?"

"LeRue's hurt", Ethan responded, "and the bastard SKX has escaped."

"What?", Rosa said, "I'll send help, don't let SKX get away!"

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena ran into a door to a storage room in the back of the bowling alley. Suddenly, a man armed with a butcher's knife lunged at Rena from behind a broken arcade machine. Rena raised her bowling pin just in time to block the attack, knocking away her attacker's knife.

Keiichi and Ethan turned, guns raised at the sound, but were too late, Rena raised her .22 pistol to her attacker's face and shot him twice. The knife wielder dropped to the ground instantly.

"Come on", Ethan said as he ran towards the second door.

Keiichi, however, noticed something Ethan had not. A red metal object mounted on the wall between two disused shelves. Keiichi turned on the spot and took aim at the device he now recognized as one of the mysterious sonic emitters strewn throughout the city. Keiichi raised his .22 and fired three shots into the device.

Even the relatively weak .22 caliber bullets were enough to pierce the delicate emitter's casing. The rounds destroyed the inner components of the device, silencing the high-pitched sound emanating from it at once. Ethan turned to see what Keiichi had fired at and spotted the bullet-riddled emitter.

"I'm not going to get on you about wasting ammo", Ethan said as he walked into the next room, " those damn things are more dangerous than 100 thugs."

The door led them behind the cashier's counter of a second bowling alley. The room was similarly dilapidated, with floors covered in garbage and damaged furniture.

Suddenly, a man wielding a bowling pin like a club climbed up onto the counter and prepared to lunge at Ethan, realizing to late that Ethan was carrying a rifle. Ethan shot the man in the head at near point blank range. The back of the man's head was blown away, before he fell face down on the floor. Ethan pulled the lever on his rifle and chambered the next round.

A second man armed with a metal pole that looked like it once was part of a gumball machine jumped out from behind a pair of destroyed arcade machines as several other thugs, all armed with improvised melee weapons and all displaying the same insane bloodlust that was consuming people all over the city, jumped out from various hiding places and charged at Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan.

Keiichi took aim at a pair of men armed with a hammer and a metal pipe respectively and shot the first one in the head, taking him down in one shot, as he took down the second with a couple rounds to the chest. Rena, meanwhile, shot one of her attackers and took out another with the bowling pin she held in her other hand, bringing it down over a knife-wielding thug's head with a sickening crunch.

Ethan took down another one of their attackers with a well-aimed chest shot with his rifle, however, the final attacker threw a brick at him, which threw off his aim, causing Ethan to shoot the man in the arm. Ethan's attacker's arm was now covered in blood, hanging loosely as three quarters of the arm had been blown away.

In spite of his grievous injuries and obvious disadvantage against Ethan's gun, Ethan's attacker was still ready to fight, presumably due to the influence of the sonic emitters. He raised a bowling pin studded with nails and charging at Ethan, only to be taken down by three shots to the chest from Keiichi's .22.

Keiichi, Ethan, and Rena climbed over the counter and into the main bowling alley. Two more thugs armed with bowling pins ran out from a restroom straight at Rena.

"More of 'em" , Keiichi said, turning a firing a single shot to the head at the first attacker, who fell face down on the ground instantly, before taking out the second attacker with two shots to the center mass.

"Looks like that's the last of them", Ethan said as he led them towards the end of the bowling alley.

"Wait as second", Rena said, "There's something on that projector over there".

Rena was indeed right, a projector was pointed at one of the walls of the bowling alley, projecting the image of a bowling scorecard. The scorecard, however, did not have any scores on it, just four words, presumably referring to four different people:

UNCLE

MAYOR

DIRECTOR

MAGIC MAN

"Rosa", Ethan said into his speakerphone, "I've found a list of name on a bowling scorecard, it says "Uncle, Mayor, Director, and Magic Man. I think Uncle is Vanhorn, Mayor is Rachel Mars, and Director might be Farrell. Not sure about Magic Man though."

"Hmmm… Strange collection of names to find in a bowling alley, I recognize all of them, except "Magic Man", Rosa said.

Ethan's phone call was suddenly interrupted as a light turned on in the back of the bowling alley. A bum walked into the light and said "I know who your looking for, he went that way", as he pointed towards a door in the back of the bowling alley.

Ethan and Keiichi turned to face the homeless man, but before they could question him further or do anything else, he ran back away from the door.

"Mr. Thomas", Rena said, pointing to a machine for returning used bowling balls, "You might want to come look at this. We have a severed head here".

Rosa was apparently still on the phone, as she said, "Did I hear something about a severed head, can you describe the scene further?".

"Yeah", Ethan said, "Mrs. Maebara found a severed female head in one of those bowling ball returner things. The head appears to be that of Mayor Rachel Mars, so I'm guessing SKX was here. A blood-filled bowling bag has been placed below the ball returner."

"Looks like SKX uses the bowling bag to carry the head around… A real sicko. As for the ID, take a photo so I can confirm it", Rosa said.

Ethan used the camera in his field kit to take a photo of the head, before sending it to Rosa.

"Well, I've seen that face a hundred times on TV. That is indeed the head of Mayor Rachel Mars.", Rosa said, "It's probably no coincidence SKX was captured near the bowling alley. This is probably his base of operations."

Ethan lead Keiichi and Rena to the back of the bowling alley and, after finding the door to the back room locked, went to a hole in the end of the alley where a machine for collection and replacing pins and balls once was. Ethan ducked into the hole first. The hole led into a back room mostly taken up by a number of machines for returning bowling balls.

A man armed with an improvised flamethrower made from an aerosol can jumped out from behind one of the bowling-ball returners and took aim at Ethan. Ethan fired his rifle before the man could fire the improvised flamethrower. The bullet hit the homemade incendiary device, causing it to explode in a flash of fire, before the round continued on the enemy's head.

"Mr. Thomas, I heard gunshots…", Keiichi said as he crawled into the room, followed by Rena.

"I'm fine", Ethan said as he turned the corner around the bowling ball collector, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

A man armed with a metal electrical conduit lunged at Ethan, but was immediately taken down by Ethan's rifle. After the first attacker, a second man lunged at Ethan with a sledgehammer. Ethan squeezed the trigger, but heard not the crack of gunfire, but the click of an empty chamber.

Four gunshots rang out, Keiichi and Rena both shot the Ethan's attacker twice with their .22 caliber pistols. The thug dropped to the floor instantly, his chest riddled with bullets.

"Thanks", Ethan said, simply, as he picked up the dead man's sledgehammer off the floor, "Check your ammo, you guys got any left?"

Keiichi released the magazine from his handgun and helped Rena do the same.

"We're both out", Keiichi replied.

"Come on, SKX has to have gone this way", Ethan said, pointing at an open door at the other side of the room, "We can still deal with any problems the old fashioned way".

Keiichi grabbed the electrical conduit off the thug Ethan had shot minutes earlier as Rena raised the bowling pin she'd been using as melee weapon, and followed Ethan through another room that seemed to be the back of another bowling alley, before making his way to a hole in the brick wall about six by four feet wide.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked through the hole and across an alleyway, into the side door a building on the other side. Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked into a locker room of an abandoned school. The floors were strewn with garbage and many of the locker doors were broken off.

Near the top of the walls, someone had written the words "THE VOICES, THEY ARE HERE, and, on the opposite wall, "THOMAS".

"I've been here before", Ethan said.

"What?", Rena asked.

"Yeah, St. Joseph's School for the Severely Troubled, closed down about a year ago, I was here on an investigation related to the SKX and The Torturer cases. And from the looks of it, this, rather than the bowling alley, is SKX's base of operations."

Ethan walked across the locker room to a metal gate of the other side separating the room for the rest of the school.

"Damn, It's locked", Ethan said, kicking the door angrily.

"Mr. Thomas, take a look at those lockers", Keiichi said, pointing out a stack of lockers that had been turned on their sides and stacked into improvised "steps" up to a hole in the roof, "I think we might be able to climb up those".

Ethan looked at the stacked lockers, then around the room. There was no other exit except the hole in the roof.

"Looks like there's no other exit except this hole in the roof", Ethan said as he climbed up the stack of lockers, "SKX must have come this way.".

Ethan climbed up the locker stack, followed by Keiichi, who held out a hand to help Rena climb from the top of the lockers into the attic. The school attic was filled with cardboard boxes, broken desks, and other garbage.

To one side of the hole was a piece of what looked like a piece of butchered meat, surrounded by a pool of blood.

"I don't want to know where that came from", Keiichi commented on bloodied chunk of flesh.

Rena, however, was focused on something else, namely a dark figure that ran out from behind a cardboard box, towards a second hole in the attic floor leading back down into the school.

"Did you see that?" , Rena asked

"Yeah", Ethan said, "Lets see where that hole leads to."

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked over the second hole in the attic floor. Below them, they could hear faint cries of pain and the sound of dogs barking.

"What the hell is that?", Keiichi asked, pointing down the hole at a bloodstained table in the middle of the room.

"I'll go first", Ethan said, dropping through the hole into the room.

Seconds later, Ethan said, "Room's clear, but there's some really fucked up shit in down here…"

Keiichi dropped through the hole, followed by Rena, hoping to find out what waited for them below.

They climbed down from the table, into a shower room that had been converted into a chamber of horrors. In the center of the room was the large table, surrounded by a small side table holding various blood stained scalpels and scissors. The shower stalls along the side of the wall had been converted into cages holding a pair of vicious-looking dogs, kept in their cages by an improvised electric fence made from the barbed wire and a car battery. More dark, mysterious, and violent sounding graffiti was written on the walls, including "DESCEND", "DESTROY", and "AWAKEN" as well a repeat of "THE VOICES".

Ethan got out his field kit camera and photographed the cages and the table as Keiichi and Rena just stared around the room in shock.

Ethan then walked over to a cage like object near the exit to the room. It looked like a cage mounted on top of a wooden frame. Still trapped within the frame was a homeless man, his head in the cage, with his neck held tightly in a sort of wooden vice attached to a hole in the bottom of the cage. The man was making choking sounds and cries of pain. Ethan took a photo of the torture device.

Rena gasped in shock as she caught sight of the man's face. Pieces of metal had been crudely implanted into various locations on his face, most notably a metal piece replacing most of his lower jaw.

"This guy's still alive", Rena said before she walked to the back of the torture device and said to the homeless man, "Hold on a second, I'm going to get you out this thing"

Rena loosened the device holding the man's neck in place. He immediately took in a deep breath and rolled out from under the frame of the implement of torture. He walked over to improvised operating table and grabbed a scalpel before suddenly turning towards Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena and yelling "You bastards!, I'll fucking kill you!"

"Wait", Rena said, "Were not the bad guys!"

The homeless man ignored Rena and charged at them with the scalpel poised to strike.

Ethan jumping in front of Keiichi and Rena and swung his sledgehammer in a wide horizontal arc, impacting the man on the side of the head.

Their would-be attacker fell to the floor at once, a bloody depression caved into his temple.

"Looks like they're almost as dangerous as SKX himself", Ethan said as he walked out of the room, "It'll be easier if we don't free any more we find".

Keiichi and Rena followed Ethan through the exit, into a bathroom had also been converted into a torture chamber, the toilet stall lined converted into more electrified cells, one with another homeless man trapped inside. Above the cages, more graffiti was scrawled: "METAL MEN, THEY ARE HERE".

Next to a row of sinks was another torture device, this one a very narrow cage, barely wide enough for a man to fit inside. A homeless man, his face featuring similar metal implants to the others, was trapped inside the device, his feet soaked in bucket of water, to which was connected a car battery.

Rena walked over the cage and knelt down next to the car battery.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea", Ethan said.

"I know", Rena replied as she disconnected the wires from the car battery. "But I can at least turn off the electricity"

The cries of the man in the cage fell silent as Rena shut off the electricity. Suddenly, the silence was once again broken by heavy footsteps. A man with the same metal implants in his face as the other victims in the torture chamber burst into the room, armed with metal pipe, lunging at Rena, who was still kneeling next to the now-deactivated torture device.

Rena raised the bowling pin, blocking the man's attack, before striking him the knee hard enough to break his kneecap. The man fell to his knees, clutching his injury. Rena immediately delivered a finishing blow to the side of his head.

After dealing with her attacker, Rena got up and walked through the door the man entered through, along with Ethan and Keiichi. The door lead into a hallway lined with broken trophy cases and disused blackboards, as well as large piles of debris and trash.

Ethan walked to the end of the hall. The door at the end was locked.

"Damn!" Ethan yelled, kicking the locked door. The door, however, was not the only route deeper into the school that had become SKX's personal torture chamber. To the right of the door, Ethan saw a man-sized hole in the wall.

"Come on", Ethan said as he led Keiichi and Rena through the hole. On the other side was what remained of the school's laundry room. Rows of washing machines lined the wall. Disturbingly, the insides of many of the washing machines were stained with blood. In the middle of the room, some of the washing machines had been moved into a row across the middle of the room, in order to form a barricade.

Ethan climbed on top of the row of washing machines. Almost at once, Ethan clutched his hands to his ears against an unbearably loud sound. Keiichi and Rena looked around for what they now knew must be yet another of the mysterious sonic emitters. It was Rena who saw it first. She hurled her bowling pin at the emitter, smashing the device as the bowling pin impacted it.

"Thanks", Ethan said, as he climbed down the other side of the washing machines, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked through the door into the school's kitchens. The room was centered around a steel table that held more bloody implements SKX presumably used to torture his victims. The walls were lined with several rusting old ovens and steel shelves. Suddenly, two dark figures crossed the room.

"Did you see that?", Rena asked.

"Yeah", Keiichi said, "Looked like two people, looked scrawny, ill or underfed, seemed to be crawling across the room."

"Yeah, but were moving pretty fast for someone who is that sick.", Ethan said, "We should be careful."

Ethan walked towards an open door that read with as sign next to it saying "Cold Storage". "I thought I saw one of those dark figures go in here", Ethan said, "lets take a look".

Ethan walked into the freezer room, followed Keiichi and Rena. The temperature instantly dropped considerably, causing their breath to create a fog that hung in the air for a few seconds.

The room was lined with steel shelving, empty, except from the occasional large, blood stained plastic bucket. In the center of the room stood a metal table, onto which a man lying, bound to the table by two large leather straps.

"That guy on the table, that's my old boss, SCU Director Farrell", Ethan said at he stared at Farrell".

"Is he still alive?", Keiichi asked.

"I think so", Rena said, "See that fog coming out of his mouth? He's still breathing.". Rena walked over to Farrell and put her hand on his neck, "I think I feel a pulse too".

"Rosa", Ethan said into his speakerphone, "I've found Farrell. He's cut up pretty bad, but he's still alive. "

"Well", Rosa said, "That list of names you found now makes sense, a list of SKX's targets. Whoever this "Magic Man" is, he must be next. ".

Suddenly, Farrell got up and began to speak. "Help me.", he said, "Find something to cut these straps, we need to get out of here, they know we're here. SKX he has been experimenting on the homeless, perfecting…"

Rena, meanwhile, looked around the room for something sharp to cut the straps with. She found a dead body of one of the kitchen staff, leaning against the wall with a meat cleaver lodged in his forehead. The man looked to have been dead for at least six months, possibly even a year.

Rena pulled the cleaver out of the dead man's head and said "I've found a cleaver. I'm gonna try and cut those straps."

Rena was interrupted, however, when someone pushed aside the body. The person who pushed aside the body was scrawny and underfed, with metal implants similar to those of SKX's other subjects in his face and in his back. He attempted to take a swing at Rena with a piece of rebar, lunging at her far more quickly than one would expect someone so malnourished to move.

Rena blocked her attacker's blow with her cleaver. She counter attacked with a horizontal slash with her cleaver, cutting the man's throat. The wound bled profusely as Rena's attacker fell to the floor, dead.

Rena walked over to the table Farrell was strapped to and hacked at the first strap. The cleaver sliced clean through the leather strap.

"That should do it", Farrell said, "Quickly now".

Rena turned to the second strap and cut it as well, freeing Farrell from the table. Farrell slowly got off the table and onto his feet.

"I don't need to tell you that SKX is delusional and psychotic, as are his test subjects, lets move cautiously", Farrell said as he started to walk out of the room.

"We'll go ahead of you", Ethan said, leading the others out of the room.

Ethan, Keiichi, Rena, and Farrell walked out of the freezer room, back into the kitchen. Ethan turned towards the door towards the laundry room, but Farrell stopped them.

"Wait", the FBI Director said, "There's a quicker way out, through the gym. Go through that door."

As they turned towards a door on the other side of the kitchen, the sound of banging pots and pans and rapid footsteps was heard. Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena all turned to see what the noise was.

From the other side of the kitchen, two of the scrawny, yet extremely fast "SKX test subjects" ran at Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan. The first one tackled Rena to the ground and placed his hands around her throat, choking her.

At that moment, Rena felt an odd sense of déjà vu, she often had a recurring nightmare about a situation like this. She was a child again, in Hinamizawa, near the abandoned Volkswagen in the dump she used as a "secret hiding place". She was pinned against a piece of sheet metal by a woman named Ritsuko, a woman who she had discovered planned to marry her father and scam him out of his money. The dream always ended the same way, waking up after she killed Ritsuko in self-defense.

Rena was sure had merely been a dream, yet it was exceedingly vivid, almost like a memory of a past life.

Rena raised her cleaver and made an upward slash at her attacker, slicing him across the stomach.

The man stopped strangling her and recoiled back slight. Rena seized this opportunity, taking her cleaver in both hands and striking her enemy's forehead. The blade buried itself in skull of Rena's assailant. His body immediately went limp and fell on top of Rena, who pushed the man's small, scrawny body off her without too much difficulty.

The second "SKX test subject" lunged at Keiichi with a pipe wrench. Keiichi jumped backwards, dodging the blow, before swinging at his attacker with his electrical conduit.

The man with the metal implants in his face swung Keiichi at the same time. The two weapons collided, knocking both of weapons across the room. The Keiichi's attacker continued the attack with his bare fists.

Keiichi sidestepped the attack, but the "SKX test subject" kept going, running forward, wildly swinging at the air, not stopping in time to avoid colliding with a counter along the wall of the room, briefly stunning him.

Keiichi seized his attacker by the back of the head and slammed his face into the counter until his enemy stopped moving. Keiichi retrieved his attacker's wrench as he turned to Ethan, Farrell, and Rena.

"Looks like that's the last of 'em, come on!", Ethan said, walking towards the door Farrell had indicated, Keiichi and Rena in his wake.

Suddenly, a homeless man ran through the door, his face had the same metal implants and the rest of SKX's test subjects. He ran at Ethan, swinging a metal pipe.

Ethan raised his sledgehammer and blocked the man's attack, before kicking him in the stomach, knocking him against the door. Ethan hit his attacker over the head with his hammer, striking him with such force that the door behind him was knocked off its hinges. Both Ethan's attacker and the door fell to the floor.

Ethan walked through the doorway and into a hallway ending in a staircase. On the wall, the word "PIT" was written in black spray paint, along with an arrow, leading to the top of the staircase, which had a sign with the label "To Bleachers", which was also spray-painted over, again, with the word "PIT".

"What's with that graffiti?", Ethan asked, "Pit?"

"SKX dragged me through there. I could see very well, I barely was conscious", Farrell said, "But I thought I saw some sort of large metal cage".

"Probably another of SKX's torture chambers, like the one in the locker room.", Keiichi said.

Ethan walked over to a door about midway down the hall. A sign marked the door as the entrance to the gym. Ethan tried to open the door, but it was locked.

"Shit", he said, "Stand back, he said, I'm gonna try and bust this door open."

Ethan raised his hammer and struck the door several times.

"Dammit", Ethan said, "It won't budge."

"We might be able to get down into the gym from the bleachers", Rena suggested, pointing to the staircase at the end of the hall.

"Sounds better than sticking around here.", Ethan said.

Suddenly, a three of the small, scrawny SKX test subjects crawled out from under the staircase. They kept crawling across the floor, much faster than should have been possible. It was almost as the though they were more used to moving on all fours than walking normally.

Each of the three "crawlers" ran at a different target, getting up onto two legs as they prepared to attack. The first one went for Ethan, swinging a three-foot length of metal pole.

The former FBI agent blocked the blow and knocked the "crawler" backwards onto it's back with his sledgehammer. Ethan then raised his hammer and crushed his attacker's skull.

The second "crawler" lunged at Keiichi, armed with a frying pan, presumably taken from the kitchen.

Keiichi swung his pipe wrench at the enemy, impacting on the back of the frying pan, sparks flying as metal struck metal. Keiichi and his attacker's weapons clashed, neither being able to get a hit on the other.

Suddenly, Ethan kicked Keiichi's assailant in side, knocking him hard against a wall. Rena ran at the enemy, raising the meat cleaver she was using as an improvised weapon. She swung the meat cleaver the "crawler's" neck. The blade impacted the enemy's neck with such force that it sliced clean through, severing Keiichi's assailant's head, spraying blood everywhere, before continuing and embedding itself in the wall.

The third "crawler" attacked Rena, who had her back to her attacker, with a 2x4 with several nails sticking out of it.

"Rena", Keiichi yelled, "Behind you!"

Rena rolled out of the way just in time to avoid horizontal swing from her attacker's 2x4. As she dodged the attack, Keiichi ran at the "crawler", his pipe wrench raised. He struck the enemy on the back of its head, knocking the crawler to the ground, before hitting it several more times in the face, to make sure he had dispatched his foe.

Rena turned to see Keiichi standing over her attacker's body, bloodstained wrench in hand.

"Thanks again", she said, "This must be how many times now?"

"Lost count a while ago", Keiichi replied.

"Come on", Ethan interrupted, "Let's get out of here before anymore of those things, or worse, SKX, shows up."

Ethan walked up the battered staircase leading to the gym bleacher and opened the door.

"Holy shit!", Ethan said as he entered the room. A chain link fence about twenty feet tall, reaching up to the balcony the bleachers were situated on now fenced in the gym floor. Inside the fence, there were two of SKX's test subjects fought each other, both armed with metal pipes.

The fence was lined with electrified sections of fence, barbed wire, circular saw blades, sharpened rebar spikes, and in on corner, a hole in the floor that appeared to have more rebar spikes.

"What the hell is that?", Rena asked

"Looks like some sort of arena, like SKX staging gladiatorial matches with his test subjects", Keiichi commented.

"One sick son of a bitch", Ethan replied.

Rena turned her eyes away from the bloody spectacle and looked towards the door. "Mr. Thomas" she asked, "Where's Farrell"

"What?", the ex-FBI agent asked, "He was here just a sec…"

Ethan was interrupted by the sound of struggle. Rena turned to see homeless man with the same metal implants in his mouth as the rest of SKX's test subjects knock first Ethan, and then Keiichi down, into the arena below.

Rena lunged at the man, cleaver raised, but her weapon was knocked out of her hand as he blocked it with a piece of rebar. Rena's attacker pushed her off the edge, into the arena below. As her feet left the floor, Rena seized the man by his arm and dragged him down with her, turning in midair in so he hit the ground first, breaking Rena's fall.

The man who knocked Rena off the bleachers was lay motionless beneath Rena, either dead or unconscious. Rena go up, slightly dazed by the impact. She blinked a few times to clear her vision, in front of her, she saw Keiichi and Ethan both fighting with SKX's test subjects. Rena looked around on the floor, the meat cleaver she had been using as weapon was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly, Rena heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the floor. She looked in front of her to see a large man with the now familiar metal implants in his face enter the arena. He immediately turned to Rena and charged at her, trying to push her into a wall of sharpened rebar spikes that Rena just now realized was behind her.

Rena's attacker was only a couple feet from her when she dodged to the side, aiming a kick at the man's legs as she dodged. The SKX test subject tripped and fell face forward into the wall of spikes, one of the spike going straight through his head, killing him instantly.

As Rena defeated her attacker, Ethan blocked his the metal pipe that his assailant tried to bludgeon him with and thrust his sledgehammer forward, into his face, before grabbing him a tossing him into the hole in the floor. The sickening sound of flesh being pierced metal spikes could be heard as he hit the bottom.

Keiichi meanwhile, landed several blows on his attacker with his pipe wrench, knocking the man to the floor. Keiichi, however, was not out of danger yet, a homeless man who appeared to be a meth addict, no doubt further destabilized by the influence of the sonic emitters and SKX's torture, charged into the arena, armed with one of the sharpened pieces of rebar from the death traps on the walls. He approached Keiichi from behind, the rebar spike raised in his hands like a dagger.

Rena seized a brick from the floor and threw it at the man, striking him in the back. The homeless man turned to face Rena at the exact same time Keiichi turned to look investigate the sound of the brick striking his attacker's back. Keiichi wasted no time, raising his pipe wrench and striking the man in the back of his head, knocking him to the floor with a bloody mark on his head where the wrench hit him.

The final one of SKX's test subjects charged out an entranced to area, straight at Ethan. The ex-agent raised his sledgehammer over his head and threw it at his assailant. The head of the hammer make contact with the man's face, striking him directly on one of the metal implants SKX had inserted in his face. Ethan's attacker fell to the floor instantly.

"Looks like that's the last of 'em" , Ethan said, "Now let's find a way….".

Suddenly, Ethan's voice was drowned out by a high-pitched sound identical to that from the sonic emitters. Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena all plugged their ears and fell to their knees and closed their eyes in pain, even with plugged ears, the sound was still painfully loud.

Suddenly, the sound stopped. "Disgusting creatures, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Thomas", a voice said.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena opened their eyes, two people stood on balcony holding the bleachers. One of them was Farrell, the other was a man in an FBI uniform.

"The two-faced rat himself", Ethan responded.

The man in the FBI uniform pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Farrell. "You still haven't grasped the situation, Mr. Thomas, Farrell's your executioner, he's not worthy of your loyalty.", the man in the FBI uniform said.

"Don't do this Dorland", Farrell said, "He belongs with us, you're a fool if you don't see that."

"So that's this Dorland guy Mr. Thomas told us about", Keiichi said"

Rena opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Ethan, who said, "Since when did the SCU employ murderers?"

"I take orders from the Oro now", Dorland said, "and so should he, isn't that right!"

As Dorland spoke, he pushed Farrell off the balcony, into the gym below. "Get up!", Dorland yelled, "Kill them before they ruin everything!".

"No", Farrell said defiantly.

"DO IT", Dorland yelled, "Remember who you are!"

"I've risked everything", Farrell said, "Find the voice"

As soon as Farrell spoke the last word, the familiar sound of Oro sonic emissions filled the room. Keiichi and Rena both plugged their ears and tried to walk away as the sound rang inside their head.

It reached an almost unbearable intensity, when suddenly, Farrell's head mysterious exploded violently, spraying blood and brain matter everywhere. At that moment the sound stopped. What was weirder, Keiichi wasn't sure, but it sounded like the sound might have originated from… Ethan.

"What the fuck just happened?", Ethan said, staring at Farrell's headless corpse.

"It sounded like one of the those sonic emitters", Keiichi said , though he decided not to share the fact that he though the sound originated from Ethan, "But it was more intense…"

Keiichi was interrupted by the sound of a door being forced open on the other side of the gym. All three of them turned towards the source of the sound to see an FBI SCU agent armed with an M4 carbine walking towards them, weapon raised.

Suddenly, a knife flew at the agent, sticking in his back and killing him instantly. The knife thrower revealed himself to be a man wearing a dirty pair of jeans and what looked like a butcher's apron, with his entire left cheek missing from what looked like a gunshot wound, and a cut shaped like an "X" carved in his forehead. All three of them recognized him at once: Leland Vanhorn, also known as "Serial Killer X".

"Come on", SKX yelled, as he turned back towards door, motioning for Ethan, Keiichi and Rena to follow him. Ethan turned to follow him.

"Are you sure….", Rena began, but was silenced by the sound of gunfire from the balcony above the gym. A pair of SCU agents were firing down on them from the balcony, leaving Keiichi and Rena no choice but to follow SKX and Ethan through the door and into the entrance foyer of the school.

"You three, go over there", SKX said, pointing to a corner of the room, out of sight of the door."

Two SCU agents burst through the door, guns raised. The agents moved through the door and kept moving forward, not noticing SKX, who lay in wait at the side of the door, armed with a large hunting knife.

SKX jumped out from his hiding place, knife in hand and slashed at the throat of the first agent. Blood sprayed from the man's neck as he fell to the ground.

The second agent turned to face SKX, but before he could get a clear shot with his carbine, SKX thrust his knife in the man's temple. The blade went straight through the agent's skull, killing him instantly.

After SKX finished off the two agents, he turned to Ethan, placing his knife just inches from his throat.

"What's this about?", Ethan asked, "I thought you were in their side".

"SHUT UP!", SKX shouted angrily, before continuing, "Think of this as a future investment"

As SKX spoke, Keiichi walked towards the M4 carbine lying next to one of the dead SCU agents. Suddenly, however, SKX grabbed the M4 from the second agent, which was lying right at his feet and turned so he had a clean shot at all three of them.

"Don't even think about it", SKX said, "All of you get in that corner".

After he ordered all three of them into the corner, SKX said, "As I was saying, I look forward to cutting you open, Mr. Thomas, learn your little secret…"

As SKX spoke, the sound of police sirens in the background grew closer.

"But now is not the time", SKX, before he took off before any of them could do anything to stop him.

As soon as SKX disappeared around the corner, Ethan received a call from Rosa.

"Ethan", Rosa said through the speakerphone, "Something's happened, there's panic. Dorland's agents are gathering everyone up for panic, they're looking for you."

"Rosa, Listen to me", Ethan replied, "That Magic Man on the list of names, I think I've heard of him, real tricky son of a bitch, hangs around Spencer's Magic Theater, you heard of him?"

"Yeah", Rosa replied.

"Meet the Maebaras and I there, and make sure you're not followed", Ethan instructed.

"OK", Rosa said, "I'm on my way".

Ethan put his phone back in his pocket and turned to Keiichi and Rena. "One of you, grab that rifle, I have a feeling we're gonna need it", Ethan said, motioning to the M4 carbine lying on next to the dead SCU agent.

Keiichi grabbed the carbine and followed Ethan, out the main entrance to the school, with Rena bring up the rear. Ethan got out his field kit and set it to GPS mode.

"The magic theater should be a couple blocks in this direction", Ethan said as he walked down the deserted street, "Follow me and stay in a group".


	8. Chapter 8: The Magic Man

**I do not own Condemned 2: Bloodshot or Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. Condemned is owned by Monolith, Sega, and WB Games. Higurashi is owned by 07****th**** Expansion. I am not making any profit from this fanfic. **

**Author's Note: I have slightly changed some small details of entrance foyer of the magic theater and the turntable from the game, so it, in my opinion makes a bit more sense**

Chapter Eight: The Magic Man

Ethan Thomas led Keiichi and Rena into the entrance of Spencer's Magic Theater, M4 carbine in hands. This particular carbine had been recovered off a dead FBI agent in the abandoned school, and only had a partially full magazine- most of the ammo had been expended in a fight with a couple of armed thugs on the way the theater.

Ethan scanned the foyer to the theater. The room looked abandoned, all the furnishings looked beat-up and covered in dust.

"Looks clear to me", Ethan said, "We'll wait here". Ethan walked over to the ticket counter and pulled up a battered stool from behind the ticket counter and sat along the counter, as though sitting at a bar. The comparison to a bar was enhanced by a half-full bottle of whiskey on the counter.

"Good, I need a fucking drink", Ethan said as he seized the bottle.

"Mr. Thomas", Keiichi said, "I don't think that's…."

Ethan turned away from Keiichi and said "Shut up!", angrily.

"I'm sorry, I…", Keiichi said.

"I SAID SHUT UP!", Ethan shouted angrily as he stood up and turned towards the empty space to his left.

Keiichi opened his mouth to speak, but he was interrupted yet again, this time by Rena.

"I don't think he's talking to us", Rena said, "I think he thinks that someone else is there. Remember what happened on the plane to Black Lake?"

Now that Keiichi thought about it, he was right. On that plane, shortly before the pilot had collapsed, Ethan had been acting as though the pilot had been speaking to him, even though the pilot wasn't saying a word. Could this be the same thing? Only this time, Ethan was talking not to an unconscious man, but empty space.

Keiichi was distracted from his thoughts when Ethan seized the whiskey bottle and threw it against a wall. Ethan then rose to his feet, clutching his forehead, as he yelled, "NO! NO MORE!"

Ethan then grabbed the M4 carbine, which he had placed next to the stool and took aim at an empty corner of the room.

Keiichi and Rena dove behind the counter as Ethan opened fire, emptying what was left of the rifle's magazine into the wall, riddling it with holes. As the rifle fell silent, Ethan collapsed to the floor.

The moment after Ethan collapsed, the door opened. Keiichi pried a loose 2x4 off the counter and raised it as he approached the door, followed by Rena.

"Mr. Maebara?", a figure in the doorway said, "Is everything okay?"

The figure walked in, revealing herself to be a familiar African-American woman, Rosa, that FBI agent they had met earlier, the one Ethan used to work with.

" Your Mr. Thomas' friend, right?", Keiichi said, "Rosa, wasn't it".

"Yeah", Rosa replied, "Is Ethan okay?".

"No", Keiichi said, hurriedly "He started talking to thin air, and then he started shooting at a well, then he just collapsed onto the floor. He's over there."

Rosa ran over to Ethan, who was now starting to get up.

"Ethan, get up", Rosa said, "It's okay, you were having a nightmare."

"Damn", Ethan responded, "My head is killing me."

"Your exhausted", Rosa said, "We all are. Anyway, as I was saying, SKX is out of the picture. Dorland and the Oro are our main concern. This may end up being a wild goose chase, but, if we're right, the "Magic Man" can help us."

Rosa walked over the ticket counter, and placed her laptop on it. She then turned to Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena, and said, "You three, go and search this place, see if you can find this "Magic Man".

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena toward a staircase onto leading up the second floor. The staircase was lined with an ornate wooden railing and covered in a red and gold carpet. Both the carpet and the woodwork looked worn, discolored and faded with age. In front of the staircase stood a pair of stanchions that once held up a red rope blocking the entrance.

"That carbine's out of ammo, so take one of these until we find a better weapon", Ethan said, picking up a stanchion and holding it is both hands as Keiichi did the same.

Part way up the staircase, a poster was framed on the wall, showing the portrait of a magician, proclaiming him as "The Magic Man. The Great Magician, Wonder of the Universe, Even Death Shall Be Amazed!"

The three of them walked past the poster and onto the top floor landing. Ethan opened the heavy wooden doors, opening onto a large, two-level room, with large staircase leading down into the center of the room, which housed a ring of metal girders with an opening on one side. In the center of the room was cage with three swords stuck in it.

As Ethan, Keiichi and Rena walked into the room, a loudspeaker mounted on the wall crackled to life: "The house of illusion, the slight of hand, the bizarre and unexplainable. Welcome to the "The Magic Man!" please, have your tickets ready. We aim to astound and amaze, so, lets get started! A wonderful treat awaits! Expect the unexpected!"

"Yeah", Ethan said, "I'll do that!", Ethan said sarcastically.

As Ethan spoke, a jet of flames flew out from the opening in the metal ring, and the center of the lower level began to spin rapidly.

Rena jumped back in surprise that the sudden movement of the central "ring".

"Looks like some sort of turntable", Keiichi said, "There might be a switch somewhere on this balcony."

"Yeah", Ethan said, "There's a pair of open doors on the right side of the balcony. It might be in there."

Ethan walked over to the open doors, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

"Holy Shit!", Ethan said, as he turned to something he hadn't noticed when they first entered: a giant wooden wheel painted like a bull's eye. Attached the wheel by a number of large daggers, was the body of a scantily clad woman, presumably some sort of magician's assistant. Around the edge of the wheel was painted the phrase: "Come take a stab at the Wheel of Death."

"Something tells me that trick didn't go to well", Rena said.

" That was no trick, look over there", Keiichi said, pointing to each of the four corners of the room. Rena and Ethan looked around, realizing that all four corners of the room had a wheel with a woman stuck on it with daggers.

"Well, whoever did that, they're not here now.", Ethan said, "Lets get back to the task at hand."

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked through the wooden doors at the left side of the room, into a small plywood-walled room about the size of a large closet with a switch on the wall.

"I think this is it", Keiichi said as he pulled the lever on the wall, however, the turntable didn't move. Instead, the door to the room closed. After the door closed, they felt the room start to descend.

"I think this is an elevator to the lower level.", Ethan said, "We'll check down there….."

As Ethan spoke, he received a call on his field kit's speakerphone. "I've updated your field kit with some interesting information regarding the Oro", Rosa's voice said through the speakerphone.

Ethan activated the screen on his field kit as Keiichi and Rena gathered around him. A video feed of Rosa's face came up. Rosa immediately began speaking.

"I've searched for information regarding the Oro and came up with very little.", Rosa said, "What's odd is that there's mention of the organization in any government database. However, I managed to locate a few fan sites on the Internet. From what I can gather, the name "Oro" is short for _Oro Invictus, _Latin for "invincible voice". It says they've been around for more than 3000 years, pretty remarkable if true, but we must consider the source.

"Does it say anything about the Oro's objective, their purpose?", Ethan asked.

"No specifics", Rosa said, "But it seems the Oro's purpose is to manipulate, possibly to change the course of human evolution, But the information is too sketchy to find out anything concrete."

"I know it sounds crazy", Keiichi said, "But considering what we've seen so far, I get the feeling there might be some truth in that, I mean, that bum in doll factory, SKX, Dorland, Farrell, they all mentioned the Oro… And those sonic emitters, they definitely sound like manipulation to me."

"Yeah", Ethan said, "But we can discuss this later, we have to find a way to move that turntable thing that's blocking our way. "

Ethan did not have to look far for that answer to that question; a lever was placed in one corner of the room, easily visible from the elevator.

Ethan walked over and pulled the lever forward. The turntable immediately began spinning again.

"Well, that was surprisingly simple", Keiichi commented.

However, it was not as simple as it first appeared. When the turntable stopped moving, it was still not in a position to create a passage out of the room, the opening in the metal girders had moved 90 degrees towards the stairwell, but was still not in line with the stairs.

"What?", Rena asked, "It didn't move far enough".

Rena walked over to the lever and tried to pull it further forward, but it wouldn't budge.

"I don't think that's how it works.", Ethan said, "I think there's another elevator on the other side."

Keiichi and Rena followed Ethan into the elevator and walked back up to the first floor.

As Ethan got within a few feet of the "Wheel of Death" in the corner of the room, something unexpected happened. The magician's assistant woman started moving, climbing off the wheel, grabbing two of the daggers imbedded in the wheel as she went.

The woman lunged at Ethan with the two knives, but the former agent raised the metal stanchion in his hands and blocked the blow, before bringing the stanchion down over the head of the knife-wielding woman, knocking her to the floor. She did not get up.

As Ethan's attacker fell to the floor, Keiichi heard running footsteps behind him. He swung his stanchion around, catching the magician's assistant from the other wheel in the side, knocking her over, before finishing the attacker with a blow to the back of the head.

Rena, who had been unarmed up to this point, grabbed two of the dagger from Keiichi's assailant. As she grabbed the weapons, the two magician's assistant women on "Wheels of Death" on the other side ran at Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena. The first of the assistant-women attacked Ethan, while the second went for Rena.

Rena ducked to avoid as slash aimed at her throat. As she ducked, she slashed her attacker's lower leg, causing her to trip, falling on forward as Rena stuck one of her knives in her assailant's back.

As Rena pulled her knife out of the remains of her attacker, Ethan managed to finish off his assailant in a manner similar to how he dealt with the first.

"What the hell was that about? I mean, playing dead on a wheel. I've seen these emitters do some crazy thing to people, but this…", Keiichi said, like the rest of them having long ago been desensitized to violence to the point that it just barely occurred to him that they had just killed at least one, probably more people just a moment ago, not the mention the countless others they'd killed since the start of this mess.

"We can talk later", Ethan said as he walked towards, "I just want to find this "Magic Man" character and find out what he knows about the Oro"

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked over to the elevator on the other side of the room. It took them down to a lower floor. As the elevator door opened, a familiar high-pitched ringing sound filled their ears.

The source of the sound was immediately apparent. There was a sonic emitter placed on a pillar in front of the elevator door. Ethan raised the stanchion he was using as an improvised weapon and tossed it at the emitter. The device was silenced as it broke apart and fell to the floor.

"Well", Rena said, "That explains those people who attacked us."

Ethan picked up the stanchion off the floor and pulled a lever located next to the now broken emitter. The turntable spun back into a position where they could enter the turntable.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena went back up the elevator and returned to the balcony, before climbing back down on to the turntable. The ring of metal girders now blocked the other side of the table, leading further into the theater. In the center of the turntable was an empty cage with three swords sticking out. In the center of the cage was a pole with three slots.

"It looks like this is a switch", Keiichi said, "I think the turntable will move us to the other side if we push these three swords in."

"Wait a second", Ethan said, "There's a guy in that cage."

"What!", Rena asked, "There's no one in there, it's empty."

Ethan looked at the cage for a moment and decided he believed Rena, as he said, "I'm really getting sick of seeing shit in my head".

Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan each grabbed a sword and thrust it in at the same time. The turntable activated, the wall of flames sprouting up next to the girders as the table spun around.

Suddenly, Ethan pulled one of the swords out of the switch. The turntable kept moving, but Keiichi and Rena soon realized there was a bigger problem. Ethan was wildly swinging the sword around him, as though he was fending off an unseen enemy.

Keiichi and Rena ran to the other side of the turntable to avoid being caught by one of the Ethan's wild swings. As quickly as it began, however, it had ended.

As the turntable stopped moving, Ethan dropped the sword in front of him and fell to his knees.

"What happened, did you see something?", Rena asked.

"Yeah", Ethan replied, "I was attacked by these things… They looked a bit like those SKX test subjects, but they were made of this black, tar-like shit, but blacker, almost like darkness in liquid from. This would be the third time I've seen them, but you weren't there for the other two times."

"Come on", Keiichi said, giving Ethan a hand up, "We find the "Magic Man, we'll be one step closer to finding out what's going on."

Ethan got up as he said, "Thanks", and walked up towards the gap in the ring of steel girders that surrounded the turntable, which now opened towards the staircase that lead up, further into the theater.

As Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena reached the top of the stairs, Ethan's cell phone rang.

"Hey", Rosa's voice said through the speakerphone, "I've updated your field kit with more info, check it out. Before leaving SCU, I managed to grab as disk Dorland's agents found on SKX. It's some sort of journal he was keeping, most of it's meaningless babble, but listen to this: "The root of the Oro's plan revolves around a tradition called sonic generation."

"Well", Keiichi said, "That confirms the emitters are related to the Oro".

"It's the ability to produce complex sounds that project out not just from the mouth but the entire body", Rosa continued, "People subjected to these sounds suffer acute bouts of paranoia, followed by hallucinatory episodes that slip quickly into psychosis and other forms of uncontrolled violent behavior. I goes on to say that people with natural tendencies to become violent become more so when exposed to these sonic emissions. If this is true, the implications could be huge."

"So does this mean what we've suspected all along is true, that this organization is responsible for everything that is wrong in this city?", Rena asked.

"Maybe not everything, it's probably just the ramblings of a man who's psychotic himself", Rosa replied, "But something about it rings true though. What if all of mankind's atrocities: war, murder, acts of cruelty, the very origins of crime itself, can be explained and linked to this group. I'll admit it's pretty farfetched, but a tantalizing theory nonetheless."

"Wait a minute", Ethan asked, "Does he describe how sonic generation works?".

"He does", Rosa responded, "It's a little sci-fi, but here's what he wrote: "Their ability to create sonic tones is due in part to an enlarged hollow sternum and a higher than normal bone density. Unique vocal chords can, when trained, create complex sounds that reverberate through the sternum and chest cavity like a finely tuned instrument." Now, get this, "various metal apparatuses surgically implanted into the bone and skin can amplify the effect".

"Metal apparatuses, vocal chords", Keiichi said, "Could those be the pieces we found in the mayor's body and… "

"My vocal chords", Ethan finished.

As Ethan finished speaking, the loudspeaker crackled to life again. "Our next performance is a real crowd pleaser", the voice, presumably of the "Magic Man", said, "Death comes by some horrible means. Believe the unbelievable."

Behind them, a pair of large wooden doors opened. Ethan, Keiichi and Rena turned around and walked into the magic theater proper. A red curtain covered the stage, and all of the seats in the theater had been removed. In front of the stage stood a pair of pedestals, upon which stood an old-fashioned speaker and a platform, presumably for the operator.

Suddenly, the speakers set up on the front of the stage crackled to life again. "Like a bird, you are drawn to me", the "Magic Man" said, "And like a bird, you find retreat impossible."

"I'm not here to play your fucked up games, Magic Man", Ethan responded.

"No", the Magic Man replied, "Not like a bird, not like the other helpless people lining the bowels of this city.

"Enough babbling", Ethan replied, "Come out where I can see you!".

"You are not so easily influenced", the Magic Man said, "You are much more, aren't you."

"Hurry up and get to point already", Rena said.

As she spoke, the curtain covering the stage slowly opened. Ethan climbed up first, followed by Keiichi and Rena. The curtain opened to reveal a variety of props used for various tricks, including a bed of nails and another "Wheel of Death", with a magician's assistant playing dead on it.

The magician's assistant came to life and grabbed a pair of knives, like the last four they had faced. The magician's assistant woman lunged at Keiichi, who blocked the blow with his stanchion, before striking his attacker in the side of the head, dropping her to the floor.

"It would be more impressive if you didn't do it the last four times! I think you need to learn some new tricks, Magic Man!", Keiichi said.

Suddenly, Keiichi, Rena, and Ethan heard laughter from behind. A man in a magician's outfit stood one of the pedestals in front of the stage with loudspeakers on top. Two torches on top of the pedestal ignited. A high-pitched sound identical to that of the Oro sonic emitters rang through the loudspeaker. The sound was unbearably, painfully loud. All three of them plugged their ears.

Ethan struggled against the pain and grabbed one of several bottles of whiskey on the stage, presumably left by some drunk. Ethan seized the bottle and tossed it at the "Magic Man".

The liquor bottle shattered as it hit the pedestal. The bottle's contents ignited as they came in contact with the flaming torches, covering the entire pedestal in flames. As flames erupted around him, the "Magic Man" vanished.

"What the fuck?", Ethan exclaimed at the "Magic Man's sudden disappearance.

Seconds later, the "Magic Man" reappeared on the second pedestal in front of the stage. Keiichi grabbed another liquor bottle and tossed it at him as he prepared to start up the loudspeaker.

Again, flames licked around the "Magic Man", and again, he disappeared, and again reappeared on another pedestal, this one on the stage. Ethan and Rena both tossed a whiskey bottle at the "Magic Man", who repeated his disappearing act, reappearing on a cage suspended over a bed of nails. Next to the bed of nails stood a lever.

That was when Rena got an idea. She ran for the lever next to the bed of nails and pulled it. The cage split open, and the "Magic Man" fell down, onto the bed of nails. When performed properly, one could lie on a bed of nails without injury, your weight being spread out over the many nail points. In this case, the "Magic Man" fell onto the bed from several feet, and his feet landed slightly before the rest of his body. The nails could no support him falling with this much force, so they dug into his back.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena all walked over to the "Magic Man".

"The underground is abuzz, Mr. Thomas", the "Magic Man" said.

"How do you know who I am?", Ethan demanded.

"Fear travels fast.", the "Magic Man replied.

"Start making some sense!", Ethan said, putting his weight on the "Magic Man", forcing the nails deeper into his flesh.

"_Rememdium, _the remedy, was supposed to be a myth, a bedtime story, but now, you've made them think other wise."

"You can go to hell", Ethan said, applying more weight, pushing the nails in deeper.

"Wait a second", Keiichi said, "Didn't Farrell mention _Rememdium _in that phone call you received back at Black Lake".

"Yeah", Ethan said, "But what the fuck is _Rememdium_!."

"A gift", the "Magic Man" said, "The ideal body, perfectly tuned from birth, capable of resonating a sound so powerful it can destroy flesh and bone. It's what they fear most, a power greater than theirs!".

"This is bullshit!", Ethan said, "Are you a member of the Oro?"

"A sick incestuous organization", the "Magic Man" replied, "No, not anymore. But I can tell you, they are on the verge of suffocating this city.

"What?", Ethan said.

"Let's just say big brother is all grown up and hungry for power.", the "Magic Man" replied.

"Where can we find them?", Ethan asked.

"You… don't know what you're asking, you can't…", the "Magic Man" said.

Rena raised the knife she had take off the dead magician's assistant woman and placed it to the "Magic Man's" throat.

"All right!", the "Magic Man" replied, "The Peninsula, the answers you want are there"

Suddenly, a bright light flashed, temporarily stunning everyone in the room. The loudspeaker came to life again. The "Magic Man's" voice said, "A warning to the old, the young, and the weak at heart, it only gets more fantastical, more, dare I say, fucked up from here. Send my regards, Mr. Thomas… and Mr. and Mrs. Maebara, you might find something interesting there as well!".

When they looked back at the bed of nails, the "Magic Man" was gone.

"Where'd he go, and what does he mean by "something interesting!" Keiichi asked.

"Who cares", Ethan replied as he started walking out of the theater, "We have what we came for. Lets get back to Rosa and find a way to The Peninsula." Keiichi and Rena followed the former agent out of the theater.


	9. Chapter 9: Barging In

**I do not own Condemned 2: Bloodshot or Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. Condemned is owned by Monolith, Sega, and WB Games. Higurashi is owned by 07****th**** Expansion. I am not making any profit from this fanfic. **

**Author's Note: I have slightly changed some small details of the level so, in my opinion, it makes a bit more sense.**

Chapter 9: Barging In

Ethan, Rosa, Keiichi, and Rena all stood behind a stack of shipping containers near the bow of a barge transporting scrap metal from the city to the Peninsula. It was the dead of night, raining heavily.

"Are you sure about this?", Rosa asked.

"Absolutely, the barge is the quickest way to the Peninsula", Ethan replied.

"But it's nothing but a junkyard", Rosa replied.

"According to the Magic Man, that's where we can find the Oro." , Ethan replied.

"Maybe we should call the police", Rosa suggested.

"The SCU tried to shoot us on more than one occasion", Keiichi replied, "The police probably working for the Oro."

As they Keiichi spoke, two helicopters flew overhead, but did not notice the four people on the barge.

"Rosa", Ethan said, "I've rattled their cage. They want me dead, and probably you three as well. Dorland made that perfectly clear more than once. This could be our last chance to get to the bottom of this."

Suddenly, a flock of crows dove down on the barge, flying into the four of them. Ethan swatted at the birds for a few seconds, trying to drive them off, before, suddenly, his mouth opened as though he was shouting, but no words came out.

Instead, Ethan let out a high-pitched sound that caused Keiichi, Rena, and Rosa to plug their ears. The nearest birds to Ethan exploded into a cloud of blood and feathers. Those that were further away simply fell out of the sky, dead. It was as though Ethan had shouted with such force that he had created a blast wave, like that of an exploding bomb.

As… whatever that sound Ethan had made was… fell silent, Rosa drew her handgun. Ethan turned to her and tried to walk toward her.

"Stay away from me!", Rosa shouted, as she ran the other direction.

"No, you don't underst….", Ethan said.

At the same time, Rena said, "I don't what that was either, but it still safer if we stay together..."

It was too late, however, Rosa had run across the deck and into an open hatch leading down to the cargo hold of the barge.

Ethan shouted "Rosa, talk to me, come in", into his cell phone.

After several seconds, Ethan said, "Shit, we have to go find her. Stay with me, we might have company below decks, these things only have a couple crewmen, and they try to stay in the pilothouse, since this crime wave started".

As Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked over to the edge of the hatch, Ethan received a call from Rosa.

"Damn it, Rosa, where are you?", Ethan asked irritably.

"I think I made a mistake coming down here", Rosa replied, "I didn't know what to do… there's something down here…"

"OK", Ethan said, "Find somewhere safe and wait there, we'll find you. No more meltdowns".

As he finished speaking, Ethan took a look down into the hold. From the light of his flashlight, he could see the dark outlines of large blocks of crushed scrap metal. Some of the stacks seemed to make a sort of stair set down into the hold.

"It looks like we can climb down on these blocks of metal. I'll go first", Ethan said.

Ethan jumped a couple feet down to the top of the first metal block, before climbing down to the floor of the hold.

"It's safe, come down", Ethan said.

Keiichi climbed onto the first block of metal, before offering Rena his hand and helping her down. As they reached the lowest block however, Rena slipped on a loose piece of rebar.

Keiichi managed to catch her, but the knives she'd been carrying as a weapon since the magic theater slipped out her hand and landed on the floor.

"Are you OK?", Keiichi asked.

"Yeah…", Rena said, "Wait a second, I thought I saw something moving there." As Rena spoke, she pointed to a dark corner of the room. A few seconds later, she picked up a tire iron that was lying on top of the scrap block to replace the knife she had lost.

Keiichi and Ethan, realizing they didn't have weapons either, both grabbed weapons from the floor, Keiichi arming himself with a steel pipe and Ethan with what appeared to be the drive shaft of a small machine such as a go-kart or a ride-on lawnmower.

The three of them kept going, into the metal-lined corridor dimly lit by a couple of lights along the walls. As the entered to corridor, Ethan stopped them and pointed to the bulkhead above the door.

Attached to the bulkhead was a familiar round object, making a high-pitched ringing sound, an Oro sonic emitter. Ethan picked up a metal pipe fitting lying on the floor and tossed it at the object on the wall. The sonic emitter broke apart as the pipe fitting hit it, adding to the already overflowing amount of scrap metal in the barge.

The next room was another open cargo hold, dominated by dozens of blocks of crushed scrap metal, some of them two meters high. As Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena walked between the two of the metal blocks, the sound of shouting, and a scream from Rena caused Keiichi to turn on the spot.

A scrawny, malnourished looking man armed with a piece of rebar had lunged a Rena and knocked her off her feet. The man moved in for the kill.

Keiichi, however, managed to prevent that, striking Rena's attacker over the head with his steel pipe as he yelled "Get off her!". The man fell to the floor, dead or unconscious.

"Thanks", Rena said as Keiichi helped her up.

The three of them continued through the maze of scrap metal. At the end of the room, was a door that lead to a door which opened onto a drop down to a lower deck filled another maze-like arrangement of scrap metal blocks and disused shipping containers.

Before any of them could even think about climbing down, another scrawny figure crawled along an old shipping container with surprising speed and lunged at Ethan with a metal rod of some description. Ethan greeted him with a blow to the face from the drive shaft piece he was carrying.

"Those things look just like SKX's test subjects", Rena noted.

"I don't think SKX was here, though", Keiichi said, "If you ask me, I'd say the Oro's responsible for at least these "crawlers", if not the ones we met back at the school."

"Never mind that", Ethan said, "Lets go"

Ethan jumped down onto a shipping container, then down to the floor. Keiichi followed him down, with Rena bringing up the rear. The three of them walked between a shipping container and a block of crushed metal when suddenly, a large, muscular man armed with a steel pipe ran at Keiichi, knocking him to the floor.

Keiichi's attacker's body was pierced with various metal pieces, similar to those found in the mayor's body, and in SKX's test subjects.

Ethan placed the piece of drive shaft he was using as a weapon between Keiichi and his attacker, blocking the pipe as Keiichi rolled out of the way. Ethan took a swing at the man with his drive shaft. The man with the metal pieces blocked the blow, but was struck in the back of the head with a surprise blow from Rena's tire iron, knocking him to the floor.

As his attacker fell, Rena walked over to Keiichi and helped him up. "Thanks", Keiichi said.

"Your welcome", Rena said, before walking over to the motionless body of Keiichi's assailant.

"This guy had metal pieces in his body. Think he might be a member of the Oro?", Rena asked.

"Not sure about that", Ethan said, "The Oro would have access to something more effective than a metal pipe, you saw how they have Dorland and those SWAT teams under their influence. It seems more likely that he might have been kidnapped by the Oro. Those implants might enhance the effects of the sonic emitters. It's just a theory, but if it's true, it would explain the "crawlers" and this guy."

As Ethan explained his theory, he led Keiichi and Rena around more containers and blocks of scrap metal, stopping briefly to deal with a pair of crawlers, Rena beating down one with her tire iron and Ethan slamming the other against the side of shipping container with a blow from the drive shaft, taking the other "crawler" down.

After turning another corner in the maze of scrap metal, Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena came to a ladder that led up to a catwalk above the room. Ethan climbed up first, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

As Rena climbed up onto the catwalk, Ethan received a call from Rosa. Two gunshots rang out on the speakerphone.

"Rosa!", Ethan asked, sounding alarmed, "Are you OK?"

"Yeah", Rosa said, "Just took out a couple of the scrawny ones, I'm making my way to the end of the barge, meet me there".

As Rosa's called ended, Ethan looked out over hold they had just passed through, before looking to a door at the end of the hall.

"OK", Ethan said, "That door should lead us towards the end of barge".

At that, the ex-FBI agent walked up to the door and turned the wheel on the side of the door and pushed the door open.

The door led to a stretch of corridor with a window overlooking the cargo hold. Another door stood at the other end of the room, but the wheel used open it was missing. Ethan and Keiichi both tried to force it open.

"Shit!", Ethan said, "It won't open".

"We could go out this window and use that container as a bridge", Rena suggested, it looks like we could use it to cross over to that window on the other side."

"Unless anyone's got a better idea", Ethan said.

No one did, so Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena crawled through the window and onto the bridge created by the shipping container. Two more "crawlers" lunged at them halfway across the container.

Keiichi stunned the one that went for him with a blow from his metal pipe, before he kicked it off the container. The "crawler" fell to the deck below, hitting its head on a block of scrap metal on the way. It hit the ground, motionless. The "crawler" that attacked Ethan met a similar fate when he grabbed hold of it and tossed it off the container.

Having dispatched their attackers, the three of them made their way through the window, into a corridor like the one on the other side. This one, however had a working door at the end.

The door lead to a partially broken ladder- it was missing the last four feet or so- which Ethan went down first, then Keiichi, and finally Rena.

The lower floor contained another corridor, which lead a door that had fallen off its hinges. Beyond the door was a run-down looking storage room, with a number of rusty steel shelves. There was garbage all over the floor.

Keiichi grabbed a large wrench off one of the shelves, replacing the metal pipe. On another shelf was a radio, which was talking about an incident at a hydroelectric dam. Apparently, eleven people either jumped or were pushed into off the dam. Their bodies entered the intake of the dam, clogged up two of the turbines and reduced the dam's power output by almost 40%.

Ethan meanwhile, turned his attention to an open lock box in one room, which held a Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber handgun, the same model gun as the one he carried back when he was working with FBI.

"That'll come in useful", Keiichi said, spotting the gun in Ethan's hands.

Rena, however, looked at the gun for a few seconds, and though she did not show it, was momentarily reminded of Hinamizawa. Miyo Takano, a member of the "Tokyo Conspiracy", a group of militant ultra-nationalists intent on weaponizing the Hinamizawa Virus and using it to "make Japan the dominant power in the world", carried a Colt M1911.

When Keiichi, Rena, and the others discovered the conspiracy, Takano attempted to shoot them, but missed because of…. Well, Rena did not understand to this day what happened.

Furthermore, she had a vivid recurring nightmare where she a teenager again, with her friends from Hinamizawa. They were from the fleeing agents of the "Tokyo Conspiracy" in a dark woods near Hinamizawa. The dream always ended the same way, Miyo Takano appeared at the end of the trail, M1911 in hand, and shot Rena and the rest her friends in cold blood.

Rena was brought back to reality by the voice of Ethan Thomas, who said, "Come on, we don't have all night!".

Rena followed Keiichi and Ethan through a door into another cargo hold. Ethan flipped a switch next to a roll-up door at the end of the room, which lead into yet another cargo hold.

Around a corner in a maze created by yet more blocks of scrap metal, Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena were met by a surprise: a metal block was knocked aside to reveal an absolutely huge man in armor made from plates of scrap metal. On his back was a small motor with some sort hydraulic device attached his arms and legs. The man had created something out of a science fiction film: a suit of powered armor.

"Holy Shit!", Ethan yelled as he raised his M1911 and fired three shots. The bullets simply bounced off the man's armor. Then… Ethan saw it… how to stop the man in the powered armor.

"Stand back", Ethan said, "I'll handle this!",

"Are you crazy?", Keiichi asked.

Ethan ignored him and walked forward, pistol raised. He took aim at the eye hole in the man's armor and squeezed the trigger. The bullet went right into the hole in the armor, hitting man right between the eyes. The man in the powered armor fell backwards, hitting the floor with a loud clanging sound of metal hitting metal.

"Nice shot", Keiichi commented as the armored man fell to floor.

"Thanks", Ethan replied tersely as he walked over the body of the armored man, closely followed by Keiichi and Rena.

Beyond another roll-up cargo door, Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena entered a second of the cargo hold that was exposed by a large open hatch on the upper level. This section of hold was filled with even more scrap metal than the others. Above them was massive crane.

Ethan looked around for a way pass through the area. The only way he saw was several steel girders with created a ramp to a walkway leading up to the top deck.

"I'm going up those girders", Ethan said, "Wait here until I'm up".

Ethan climbed up the "ramp" to the walkway and said "It seems safe, come on up!"

As Keiichi and Rena were halfway up, a large man armed with a sharp metal pole lunged at Ethan. Rena jumped in surprise, slipping on the girder, which was wet from the rain that was pouring in from the open hatch.

Keiichi grabbed her and just in time to stop her from falling as Ethan fired his pistol and dispatched his attacker with a single shot to the head.

"Thanks", Rena said as she reached walkway.

On the top deck of the barge, Ethan, Keiichi and Rena saw another obstacle. An old shipping container was blocking the path between them and the walkway leading to the entrance to the lower rear section of the barge.

Keiichi tried to climb up it, but could find nothing to grab on to.

"Get out of the way", Ethan said, "I'm gonna try and use that crane"

Keiichi and Rena stood back as the ex-FBI agent climbed up into the operator's booth of the crane and grabbed hold of the control levers.

After pulling a few levers, Ethan managed to move the crane over to the shipping container. After a few more second of experimenting, he had grabbed the container, lifted it up, and dropped it into the hold of the barge.

Ethan climbed down from the crane and walked along a walkway that lead to a door on the side of the of the barge superstructure, closely followed by Keiichi and Rena. Suddenly, the porthole closest to the door exploded outward with a loud bang.

On the other side of the porthole was a thug armed with a double-barreled shotgun. The man took aim for a second shot straight at Ethan, but the former agent was too quick for him, raising his M1911 and firing off the last two shots in the magazine. Both rounds struck the man in the head, killing him instantly.

After eliminating the gunman, Ethan opened the door and entered the superstructure of the barge, into yet another dark corridor. Ethan picked up the shotgun from his dead attacker. There was only one shell left, but it was better than nothing… and, if it came down to it, the gun would still make a decent club.

"Come on", Ethan said as he opened another door, "We're near the back of the barge, Rosa should be nearby."

Keiichi and Rena entered the doorway after him. The door led into a stairwell that was dimly lit by the orange glow of a couple of lights on the walls, and down another corridor.

The three of them then made it to another stairwell, this one having a broken staircase. Several crows flew up through a hole in the ceiling as Ethan approached and jumped down, waiting a moment for Keiichi and Rena to climb down the broken staircase.

Beyond the destroyed stairwell was a door that led onto a catwalk over yet another large cargo hold filled with scrap metal. The room had a crusher for compacting loose scrap into cubes to one side, and an operator's platform for the crusher and a crane equipped with an electromagnet on the end for moving scrap. Attached to the back wall were several sonic emitters.

Below them, Keiichi noticed something moving, something that turned out to be more of those guys in their own crudely fashioned "powered armor".

At that moment, Ethan received a call from Rosa: "I've barricaded myself in a room, but I'm being attacked by these guys in metal armor. I don't know how long I can hold out.".

"Shit", Ethan yelled in response as he climbed down the ladder, shotgun in hand.

Ethan fired a shotgun blast straight into the eyehole of the first armored man, killing him instantly. "One down", Ethan said, "Come on motherfuckers".

However, the other two heard the sound of the gunshot and rounded on Ethan, who had now expended his one shot.

"You two keep them distracted", Rena said, "I have an idea".

"This better be good", Keiichi said as he climbed down the ladder to the cargo hold and threw his wrench at that the nearest armored thug. The wrench bounced off the armor as Keiichi ran around the maze of scrap metal, chased by the armored man. The other one went after Ethan.

Rena Maebara ran flat out across the room, climbing the ramp up onto the platform holding the operator's box for the magnet crane. The crane was still running. Rena grabbed the joystick and pulled the lever forward, a light attached to the crane showing when it was over her target. Rena pressed a button on top of the joystick.

The armored man was mere feet from Keiichi, who was trapped in a corner, when suddenly, the Keiichi's attacker was lifted off his feet and stuck to the magnet as all the sonic emitters on the nearest wall were pulled from their mountings and pulled towards the magnet as well.

Rena pulled the lever, and the magnet crane moved towards the compactor. It was like one of those claw games you see in arcades and movie theaters etc. Rena dropped the armored man into the crusher and flipped a switch next to crane joystick. The compactor crushed the armored man into a cube of bloodstained steel.

The second armored man broke off from chasing Ethan when he heard his fellow get crushed. He seized a large metal cube and raised it over his head preparing to throw it at Rena. Just as he was about to toss the block, Rena brought the magnet crane over him and activated it. The block was attracted to the magnet, as was armored man.

The armored man, however, let go of the block and fell to the floor below the magnet crane. Rena laughed evilly to herself as she released the block of crushed steel. It landed on top of the armored man's head, crushing his skull instantly.

As the last armored man fell, Rena exited the control booth and met up with Keiichi and Ethan.

"Nice one, Rena", Keiichi said simply.

"Brutal", Ethan commented, "But it sure got shit taken care of. Now, lets see it Rosa's OK."

The rollup door at the end of the hold rolled open. Ethan walked in, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

"Ethan, Mr. and Mrs. Maebara?", she asked, "Is that you?"

"Yeah", Ethan replied, "We're okay".

Suddenly, Ethan heard a sound echoing from the floor above.

"I'm going to check that out", Ethan said.

"We're coming with you", Keiichi said, as he followed Ethan up a ladder to a catwalk that led over the rear cargo hold. On the catwalk stood a couple of "crawlers", one of which Ethan bludgeoned with his ammo-less shotgun, and one Keiichi struck over the head with his pipe wrench.

As the "crawlers" fell, the catwalk collapsed. Ethan fell on his back as dozens of "crawlers" poured through the open rear hatch. Ethan grabbed a nail gun that was lying on ground and pointed it at the first "crawler" and pulled the trigger. The nail gun acted as an improvised pistol, placing a nail between the eyes of the first "crawler".

Ethan repeated the performance again and again, picking off "crawlers" as they charged at him, Keiichi, and Rena. Occasionally, a "crawler" got close enough that Keiichi or Rena had to take it down with their melee weapons. After a few minutes of this, the entire "crawler" horde fell to the floor, and Ethan got to his feet, walking over to a shipping container.

"I'm going in her to get some rest for a few minutes", Ethan said as he entered the shipping container, "Keep watch."

"OK", Keiichi replied, picking up the nail gun, which Ethan had dropped when he got up.

A few minutes later, the top hatches of the barge opened, and a crane grabbed the very container Ethan was inside. Above them Keiichi and Rena heard the sound of a helicopter, and looked up to see a Black Hawk labeled FBI-SCU. Several SWAT officers rappelled out of the helicopter, pointing their weapons at Keiichi and Rena.

"FBI, drop you weapons" , the officers ordered. Reluctantly, Keiichi and Rena obey and were led out of the barge by the SWAT squad leader, who carried a chrome-plated Desert Eagle that just screamed "overcompensation".

The agents lined up Keiichi and Rena against part of the hull of one of the many partially dismantled ships that were scattered around the scrap yard. Agent Dorland's voice spoke through loudspeaker, directed at the container: "Mr. Thomas, we know you are in there. We have your accomplices in custody. Save us all the trouble and exit peacefully, lets put an end to this pointless pursuit of yours."


	10. Chapter 10: The Oro Invictus

**I do not own Condemned 2: Bloodshot or Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni. Condemned is owned by Monolith, Sega, and WB Games. Higurashi is owned by 07****th**** Expansion. I am not making any profit from this fanfic. **

**Author's Note: I have slightly changed some small details of the level so, in my opinion, it makes a bit more sense as well as some changes just to keep things interesting. Also, the SWAT team leader at the beginning of the chapter is not the same person as Dorland. **

Chapter 10: The _Oro Invictus_

Keiichi and Rena stood silently against a wall of metal that appeared to have once been a bulkhead in one of the many old ships in varying states of dismantlement that littered the scrap yard and ship breaking facility at the Peninsula. Their hands were bound in handcuffs, under the guard of the SWAT team leader, and another officer. Two more officers stood guard over a shipping container that apparently held Ethan Thomas inside.

The voice of radio reporter Tony Rhodes of City News spoke through a radio on a table nearby. "They have me strapped to some sort of metal table", Rhodes said, "They're saying I might have some of it…".

Suddenly, Rhodes' voice got more panicked as he said "What…. Where? They're going to cut me open! AHHHGH!"

The recording ended, and the radio program cut to news anchor Sarah Brenton. "Live with Tony Rhodes" will no longer be heard at this time", Brenton announced, "This program has been suspended indefinitely due to his recent death. A reward is being offered for locating his body."

From the sound of the news report, Rhodes had been brutally murdered after an attempt to infiltrate the Oro compound. Keiichi began to wonder whether there was any point in surrendering to the Oro-controlled SCU. It seemed likely that as soon as they got Ethan out of the container, they'd line them up against a wall and shoot them… or worse. Rena, however, had not given up hope. She had a plan to escape, she just needed something to distract the SWAT officers.

Seconds later, Rena got what she wished for, in the form of loud bang, like an explosion, coming from the container in which Ethan was imprisoned. The doors of the container were knocked off their hinges and sent flying into the faces of the two SCU agents guarding the container, killing them instantly.

At that moment, the SWAT officers guarding Keiichi and Rena both turned their backs on them. Rena knelt down and, showing surprising flexibility, slid the handcuffs under her feet. Her hands were still cuffed, but now they were in front of her again.

Rena crept up on the SWAT leader, who was still facing the container, and pulled his Desert Eagle out of his holster. The weapon was considerably larger than most handguns, so, taking the lesson she learned from the shotgun back in the commuter tracks to heart, Rena gripped the handle firmly with both hands and placed the weapon the back of the SWAT leader's head, before she squeezed the trigger.

The .50 AE round blew away most of the SCU team leader's head as the gun recoiled back, Rena only barely maintain control. Rena, however, ignored the force of the impact and fired a second shot at the last SWAT officer, who turned to fire his MP7 submachine gun at Rena, but was caught in the chest by the second shot, the large-caliber round blowing through his body armor and killing him instantly.

"Nice one, Rena", Keiichi said, "Now help me out of these cuffs".

Rena walked over to Keiichi, apparently intending to blow the cuffs off with the large handgun, but Ethan walked out of the container and said, "Wait, it'll be safer if you use these."

Rena turned to look at Ethan, who was holding up a set of keys. Ethan walked over and unlocked Rena's cuffs, before removing Keiichi's handcuffs.

"Thanks", that both said, before Keiichi asked, "That blast that took out the container doors, was that the same thing that happened on the barge, and with Farrell back in that school?"

"I think so", Ethan responded, "It obviously has something to do with my vocal chords, like the Magic Man said…. But it seems different, almost as though if I do this…" Ethan turned away from Keiichi and Rena, and at that moment, a sonic blast shot out of Ethan's mouth, denting the metal walls of the container.

"I still think it's a good idea to grab a weapon, these guys have some serious firepower: MP7 submachine guns, M4 carbines, Benelli M3 assault shotguns…", Ethan said as he picked up an M4 carbine. Keiichi followed suit, grabbing an MP7, as Rena grabbed a combat shotgun.

"Wait a second", Keiichi said, "Is that a grenade launcher attached to your rifle?"

"Yeah", Ethan replied, "They used to use standalone launchers, but recently, SCU purchase a few of these M203s, which as you can see, can be attached under a rifle. SCU agents use them mostly for launching tear gas and other non-lethal projectiles… but these", Ethan continued, holding up an orange tipped grenade round, "Are high explosive-dual purpose grenade rounds, which are illegal, they should only be in service with the military."

"Looks to me like Dorland's Oro friends gave him some new toys", Keiichi commented.

As Keiichi finished speaking, heard hurried footsteps coming from around the corner of another old bulkhead.

"Someone's coming", Keiichi said, "Probably more of them".

Keiichi was right. Two SWAT officers burst in to the room, weapons raised. Keiichi fired a three round burst from his MP7, the weapon's armor-piercing rounds easily shooting through the body armor covering the man's chest. The second SWAT officer prepared to fire his M4 at Ethan, but was cut down by the former agent's own M4.

As the second Oro-controlled SCU officer fell to the ground, Ethan peeked around the edge of the bulkhead. Around the corner was yet another "corridor" created by rows of assorted dismantled ship parts.

Suddenly, Ethan ducked in as a burst of about seven rounds flew past his head. In a porthole on the side of a disused ship's hull, at about the level of a two-story house, was a belt-fed machine gun placed to fire down into the corridor, yet another military grade weapon no doubt provided to Dorland courtesy of the Oro.

"What was that?", Rena asked.

"Looks like another belt-fed machine gun, like the one in the truck back that you took out at the lodge. Stay where you are, I'll handle this."

Ethan peeked around the corner once again, M4 carbine raised, and squeezed the trigger on the underbarrel M203 grenade launcher. A 40mm grenade round flew out of the launcher, detonating in the room where the machine gun was placed. The gunner was killed in a flash of fire and smoke.

As the dust from the explosion settled, Ethan led Keiichi and Rena around the corner, past the remains of the machine gun nest. A bulkhead blocked any further advancement through the maze of the scrap metal, the only route through looked seemed to be a hole in the side of the partially dismantled ship.

Ethan looked into the hole, before saying, "It only looks like a drop of a few feet, I'll go first".

Ethan climbed down the hole and motioned for the other two to follow him. As usual, Keiichi climbed down next, pausing to help Rena down. The hold of the cargo ship was dark, so all three of them turned on their flashlights.

The room was pretty much bare except for a machine unlike anything Keiichi and Rena had ever seen. It looked like a metal spire about eight feet tall, with countless wires coming out of it and leading out in different directions. The machine made a familiar high-pitched noise.

"It sounds like one of those sonic emitters", Keiichi said.

"Already on it", Rena said, firing three shotgun shells into the weapon from her Benelli M3. The machine, however, remained intact.

"Shit", Keiichi said, "It's bulletproof".

"I think I have a solution to that", Ethan said, turning to a control panel hanging up against the wall, "Take a look at this panel".

The panel had a slider on it, with a warning that read, "Warning: Increasing power beyond maximum safe level may result in catastrophic failure"

"Well", Rena said, "Here goes". Rena pulled the slider up as far as it would go. A red light started flashing on the control panel as sparks started to fly from the device. The machine overloaded after a couple seconds, resulting in a small explosion that destroyed the machine.

As the device exploded, three "crawlers" lunged at Rena with pieces of scrap metal. Rena gunned down all three of them with her shotgun before Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena moved on to a corridor that ended in a ladder.

"Well", Ethan said, "I'd say that confirms the theory that the Oro are responsible for those scrawny crawling guys".

Ethan slung his carbine over his shoulder and ascended the ladder first, followed by Keiichi, and finally Rena. As Ethan neared the top of the ladder, he saw two SWAT officers running past a hole in the discard ship's hull.

Ethan unleashed the power of his mutated vocal chords, emitting a sonic blast that literally caused the two officers' heads to explode. Ethan then got up from the ladder and raised his M4 carbine as Keiichi got back onto the ground.

Once all three of them were off the ladder, they walked out of the hole in the ship's hull and found themselves in another maze of scrap metal. Another "crawler" walked out from the shadows, but Keiichi dispatched it with a burst from his MP7, before he turned to an object attached to the ship's hull: a non-functioning sonic emitter.

"Take a look at this", Keiichi said, "This emitter isn't working".

"I think that machine we destroyed is some kind of control node for multiple emitters", Ethan responded, "Destroy any others you find".

As Ethan spoke, a 40mm grenade flew over his head, exploding in the hole in the hull, sealing it with debris. The Oro-SCU agent that fired the weapon raised his M4 and took aim at Ethan, but was picked off by a three-round burst from Ethan's carbine.

With the immediate threat taken care of, Ethan climbed over a steel girder into a sort of metal room without a roof, walking past the body of the agent with the grenade launcher.

A second SCU agent, this one carrying a semi-automatic shotgun burst in, only to be caught full in the face by a blast from Rena's own shotgun.

Rena used the break in the action to reload her weapon, but was interrupted when a "crawler" up from behind and pushed her to the ground, raising a metal pipe, ready to strike.

Keiichi turned as he heard the sounds of Rena's struggle with the "crawler", firing a single shot from his MP7 into the "crawler's" head. Rena pushed the body of her attacker off of her and took Keiichi's hand as he helped her up, breathing heavily as she said "Thanks".

"Your welcome", Keiichi said, "Watch my back, I'm going to reload".

Ethan also took the opportunity to reload his weapon before moving on.

Around the next corner, A pair of SCU agents had set up a defensive position behind a barrier made from a couple of steel girders. Behind them was a generator that appeared to control another emitter node.

Ethan fired the M203 grenade launcher mounted under his M4, taking out the two SWAT officers in a ball of fire created when the grenade hit the generator's gas supply. The Oro device fell silent as its power supply was destroyed. Meanwhile, Rena dealt with two more "crawlers" that tried to sneak up on Ethan from behind.

A third SCU agent ran out from a hole in the side of another ship's hull, only to be surprised by Keiichi and cut down with a burst of MP7 fire.

Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena entered the hole, entering into a corridor with a wire coming out from the now destroyed emitter control node running on the floor, on top of a thick layer or trash and flakes of rusted metal and chipped paint.

Rounding a corner, the three of them saw a "crawler" kneeling on the floor, unaware of their presence. Ethan launched a preemptive attack with his M4, taking it down with a single three-round burst, but alerting two other "crawlers", which came running down the corridor, pieces metal pipe in hand. Two blasts from Rena's shotgun made short work of them.

As Rena dispatched the two "crawlers" coming in from the front, Keiichi heard the sound of movement behind him and turned on the spot. A burst from his MP7 took down two more "crawlers".

"Watch your back", Ethan said, "Those crawling guys could be anywhere", Ethan said as he led the way forward.

Seconds later, Ethan yelled "SHIT" as the floor collapsed beneath him. Keiichi and Rena were also caught in the collapse, and all three of them fell about ten feet.

"Is everyone alright?", Keiichi asked.

"Yeah", Ethan said.

"I'm fine", Rena responded.

"Good", Keiichi said, "I'm OK over here".

The three of them looked around at their surroundings. "It looks like were in an old wooden ship's hull", Ethan said, "It looks like that hole over there is only way out."

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena to a hole in the hull of the ship. Ethan climbed through the hole and down wooden supports. As he climbed down, the bow support collapsed, knocking Keiichi and Rena off their feet.

"Mr. Thomas!", Keiichi yelled in a panic.

"I'm fine", Ethan replied, "You should be able to just crawl through the hole now"

The former FBI agent was right. The hole now entered onto the floor of an old dry dock. Ethan stood near the wall, away from the hull, which now stood on only one support. Keiichi and Rena joined him as quickly as possible.

"What's that?", Rena asked, pointing into the corner of the room, "I hear something moving over there"

All three of them turned their flashlights to the corner of the dry dock. About twelve "crawlers" crawled across the floor at unusually high speeds, considering the state of their bodies.

Keiichi fired a burst from his MP7, taking down a couple of the crawlers, before Ethan stepped forward and open his mouth, as though shouting, but no words came out. Instead, a sonic blast blew away the stern support holding the old wooden ship's hull in place. The rear end of the hull crashed to the floor, crushing most of the "crawlers", as well as a large man armed with a metal pipe, obviously also under the influence of the Oro.

"Nice", Keiichi commented.

"Thanks", Ethan replied tersely, "Now lets find a way out of this place, and keep your eyes open for more "crawlers".

Keiichi and Rena followed Ethan around the ruins of the ship's hull, obstructed only momentarily by a couple of surviving "crawlers". Rena dispatched these with her shotgun. The three of them reached a ladder which lead back to the surface, into the maze of metal girders and ship bulkheads.

Immediately in front of them was a door leading into another ship's hull, in front of which lay the body of an SCU agent, which was surrounded by two "crawlers", which appeared to be eating it. Ethan fired two well-aimed shots from his M4 and eliminated the "crawlers".

"I knew they were malnourished, but I had no idea they were resorting to cannibalism", Keiichi commented as he stepped over the bodies.

"It's some fucked up…. SHIT!, Get inside", Ethan said as he pushed Keiichi and Rena inside the remains of the ship as the sound of a helicopter could be heard, along with that of machine gun fire."

"Is everyone all right?", Ethan asked.

"We're fine", Keiichi and Rena both replied.

"Good", Ethan said, "Let's get through this ship's hull", if the chopper comes back, I'll deal with it." As he spoke, Ethan made sure there was a fresh grenade in the M203 mounted below his rifle.

Suddenly, a door on the other side of the room burst open, revealing two SWAT officers. Rena raised her shotgun and aimed in the general direction of the door, firing three times, until both SCU agents fell to the floor.

Ethan then took point as they entered the rust-lined hallway the officers came from. Around the corner, they exited the ship's hull through a large hole that had been cut in a bulkhead with some sort of blowtorch.

Gunshots flew over their heads as Ethan pushed Keiichi and Rena down for a second time, this time behind a stack of steel girders.

"I need you guys to provide cover while I take out the guys out there", Ethan said, "Just blind fire over the top of the barricade for a couple seconds".

Keiichi raised his MP7 over the stack of girders and held down the trigger without exposing his head to enemy fire, as Rena did the same with her shotguns. Ethan got up and fired a three round burst at a sniper in a ship's superstructure opposite them, before eliminating an SCU agent in a similar manner.

Suddenly, the sound of helicopter rotors could be heard once more. A military surplus Black Hawk helicopter sporting a blue paint job and the words "FBI-SCU" flew in.

The helicopter mounted a nose-mounted machine gun, yet more military hardware courtesy of Dorland's Oro friends, no doubt. Ethan raised the M203 sight just a bit above the helicopter and pulled the trigger.

The 40mm grenade impacted the helicopter and detonated, blowing off the top rotors. The helicopter fell from the sky and crashed into a pile of scrap metal. Amazingly, both the pilot and co-pilot survived.

At this point, both Keiichi and Rena had looked the girder pile to see what was happening. The doors of the destroyed helicopter burst open, revealing a familiar man in an SCU uniform: Dorland, as well as man dressed all in black except for a metal mask and chest plate: An Oro member.

The Oro member fired a sonic blast, that, while not as strong as Ethan's, still dented a girder they were using as cover. Deciding he did not want to find out exactly how effect the Oro's blasts were on human target, Ethan fired a three round burst from his M4 at the Oro member, placing two rounds in the chest and one in the head. As his companion fell, Dorland ran into the next ship's hull.

"Dorland is running, probably heading for the Oro compound, we're going after him", Ethan said as he ran after Dorland, closely followed by Keiichi and Rena.

The three of them ran into a corridor in a partially broken ship, which led to a hole in the floor with a ladder in it. Ethan went first. When the former agent reached the bottom of the hole, he said, "Looks clear to me, come on down."

The room Keiichi and Rena descended into was a short, dark corridor that led into a room centered around a wood and metal platform surrounded by railings on all side. The platform was connected to a cable, which lead to a mechanical lifting mechanism high above them.

"It looks like some sort of elevator", Rena said as she walked onto the platform, along with Keiichi and Ethan, "This switch looks like it might start the elevator."

Keiichi and Rena hesitated for a second, looking at the switch, making sure it wasn't a trap. Having known Satoko Houjou this was not an unfamiliar routine. Satoko frequently played pranks her friends by setting traps on doorways and the like, and, when Keiichi, Rena, Satoko, and their other friends went up against the "Tokyo Conspiracy that was responsible for the Watanagashi murders, Satoko proved she could construct more dangerous creations, some of which wouldn't look out of place in the Vietnam War.

This lever, however, appeared safe, so Keiichi grabbed it and flipped the switch. With a rumbling sound and a squeaking of cables and metal wheels, the motor of the lifting mechanism started. The elevator lurched upward.

After ascending about 50 feet, the elevator ground to a halt. "Shit!", Ethan yelled angrily. Ethan's shout was interrupted by a high-pitched scream from Rena. A "crawler" had climbed up the shaft somehow and tackled Rena to the ground. The "crawler" raised a metal pipe in preparation to strike.

"Get off her!", Keiichi yelled, striking the "crawler" with his MP7, knocking it backwards, off Rena. Keiichi brought the barrel of the MP7 around and shot the "crawler" at point blank range, literally blowing half its head off.

As Keiichi helped Rena to her feet, he heard the sound of the butt of a rifle striking something. He turned around in time to see Ethan knock a second "crawler" off the elevator, now doubt falling to its death.

The elevator began moving again, but this time the sounds of the elevator were joined by the sound of something climbing on the cables. Rena looked up, and sure enough, more "crawlers" were climbing down the cables.

Rena fired three blasts from her shotgun, taking down both crawlers. The elevator kept moving about a hundred and fifty more feet, the occupants occasionally shooting a "crawler " or kicking it off the elevator. Finally, it stopped at the top level, which judging from the porthole to one side, was in the superstructure of an abandoned ship.

Footsteps clanged on the metal floor of hallway in front of them. The flashlights under their weapons revealed them to be a man with metal implants armed with a fire axe. Keiichi easily dispatched him with a burst to the chest.

"Everyone, check your ammo", Ethan said.

"7 shotguns shells, two clips for the pistol", Rena said.

"2 mags for the MP7, plus a handgun with one magazine", Keiichi said

"2 mags for my M4, no ammo left for the launcher", Ethan replied, "Plus, I have that little trick I learned. Anyway, conserve your ammunition, you two".

Ethan led Keiichi and Rena down the metal-walled hallway leading away from the elevator, M4 carbine raised. At the end of the hallway was a metal door with round porthole in it, the type of thing you'd expect to find on a ship. Ethan turned the wheel that opened the door. The door opened with a squeaking noise and the sound of metal scraping on metal.

Keiichi cautiously peeked through the door, MP7 at the ready. Immediately beyond the door was a blind corner, which Keiichi peeked around quickly.

"Looks clear", Keiichi said, thinking to himself that after only one night of doing this, he already sounded like some kind of SWAT officer.

Ethan reassumed the lead and walked up to the next corner. Around the corner, another short, metal walled hallway, this one with wires running on the floor, lead about ten feet to a small side room with an open door. Voices were emanating from the room.

"They're having a negative effect on us too", a male voice said from within the side room, "Some of our members are reporting birth defects resulting from the sonic emitters".

"Yeah", the other man in the room said, "Born without arms or limbs, enhanced hearing, and the natural ability to produce sonic emissions. It's a bit cruel, but they make excellent watch dogs."

"What was that about", Rena asked.

"Not a fucking clue, but I think we're gonna find out in a moment", Ethan responded.

One of the men in the room walked out. He was wearing all black, and wore a metal mask on his face. Wordlessly, he turned to the three of them and fired a sonic blast, which missed a knock a pipe loosed on the wall. Ethan returned fire with a well-aimed headshot from his M4.

The second Oro member ran out, yelling "Intruders!", before he created a longer lasting, wider area sonic emission that caused excruciating pain to all three of them. Rena fought the pain and fired a blast from her Benelli from the hip. At these ranges, she could not miss, and caught the Oro member with a blast to the chest.

After the encounter with the two Oro members, Ethan took the lead again, walking onward to a T-junction.

"Left or right?", Keiichi asked.

"We'll try left first.", Ethan said.

Plainly, Ethan had chosen wrong, the hallway turned a corner and ended in a dead end with what looked like an armless corpse hanging from the ceiling.

"It looks like this is some kind of maze. I'm gonna take a look at that body", Ethan said.

As Ethan took a step towards the hanging "body", it came to life and emitted a sonic blast from its mouth. Ethan was knocked backwards by the blast as his M4 carbine fell out of his hands, landing on the floor. Ethan fell backwards onto Keiichi, knocking the weapon out of his hands as well.

Rena responded the threat immediately, firing a blast from her shotgun, putting several shot in the chest of the mysterious hanging enemy. As Rena held out her hand for Keiichi, which he took, thanking her, Ethan got back on his feet and grabbed his weapon, before walking over to the remains of the hanging enemy.

Keiichi re-armed himself and walked over to join the former agent, followed by Rena.

"It looks like this… thing's arms weren't severed, they appear to have never been there in the first place", Ethan said, "It also appear to have no eyes."

"So this is what those Oro members were talking about", Keiichi added.

"Seems so", Ethan said, "Its sure is some fucked up shit. Almost seems like were doing the poor bastards a favor by taking them out".

It seemed cruel, but as Keiichi and Rena thought about it, these… things… must have lead a horrible life… eyeless and armless, trapped in some dark hallway.

"We won't be doing any good waiting", Rena said, determinedly, " The sooner we get moving, the sooner we put a stop to this".

"Keep your eyes open", Ethan said as they walked past the T-junction again, going right this time, "If you see any more of those things, take 'em out."

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena continued down the hallway to the right, Ethan turned the corner and fired a burst with his M4A1 carbine. Another one of those hanging things fell to the floor, dead.

Around the next corner, Keiichi took point, shooting another hanging enemy with his MP7. Beyond the remains of the mutated victim of the Oro, was a wooden door. The door was immediately and catastrophically blasted down as three Oro burst in.

Keiichi was knocked backward by the sonic blast that took out the door, but was otherwise unharmed. Keiichi squeezed the trigger on his MP7 and fired a two round burst. One shot grazed and wounded one of the Oro, but the other missed.

One of the Oro prepared to fire another sonic blast, but before he could act, all three Oro were cut down by a burst of fire from Ethan's M4 and Rena's Benelli. The burst of fire that used up the last of Rena's magazine, and he had no ammo left in reserve, so she drew the Desert Eagle pistol she had captured from the SCU SWAT commander.

Beyond the next door, the three of them entered a chamber of horrors. Inside were several gurneys with dead bodies lying on them. All of them seemed to have been cut open. Next to the gurneys lay tables with trays of surgical equipment, all stained with blood.

"It looks like they were dissecting people in here", Ethan said, "Opening the sternum and neck area. I think they were looking for abnormalities in the vocal chords like..."

"Yours?", Keiichi finished the sentence.

"Yeah", Ethan said.

"Hey, take a look at this body", Rena said, pointing out of one of the gurneys, is that the news guy we heard murdered on the radio. "

"Rosa", Ethan said into his cell phone.

"Ethan, where are you!", Rosa asked.

"In the Oro compound", Ethan said, "Can you assist me in identifying a body?"

"I figured you would go on alone. I'll try and help, only have my field kit", Rosa said, referring to a device similar to Ethan's.

Ethan transferred a photo of the face of the body and a scan of the victim's index finger print."

"His print is not in any records, never being a government employee, but from the picture I would say you have found Tony Rhodes", Rosa said.

Ethan thanked Rosa for the help and hung up, before the three of them went on to the next room. They entered onto a balcony over what would look like the foyer of a mansion, but it was way too dark and dimly lit. Not to mention, two large machines similar to the ones they found in the scrap yard below were placed below them.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out and a bullet whizzed past Keiichi's head. Keiichi turned to his right and fired his MP7 in a short burst, taking down an Oro member armed with an M4 carbine.

Two more armed Oro burst in on the lower floor, guns raised. Ethan picked off both of them with well-aimed headshots, before moving over to the body of the Oro member Keiichi shot and grabbing a couple magazines of M4 ammo.

"Be careful, it looks like they've been arming themselves", Ethan said as they walked over to the central "grand staircase down to the control panel for the two Oro machines. The control panel was identical to the one they saw earlier, with a slider for increasing the power output.

Ethan slid the slider up to red section labeled as ""Warning: Increasing power beyond maximum safe level may result in catastrophic failure". After a few seconds, a small explosion engulfed both machines.

Seconds later, Ethan let out muffled yell as a "crawler" jumped on his shoulders and tried to punch him in the face. Ethan fired a sonic blast that blew away the Oro "crawler", vaporizing its head and staining Ethan's clothing with blood.

The destruction of the Oro device seemed to have triggered an attack by the "crawlers". Fortunately, "crawlers" were easily dealt with. Keiichi cut down three of them with his MP7, while Rena disposed of two more with her Desert Eagle, the recoil from the first shot lifting her arm high into the air that Rena only just had time to finish of the second, whose head was blown off at point blank range, leaving Rena's clothes looking just as blood-stained as Ethan's.

Ethan, Keiichi and Rena continued on, through the door beyond the destroyed Oro machines. The doorway led into a small room with a ladder leading down a hole in the floor. Ethan went down first. As Ethan reached the bottom, he raised his M4 carbine and fired a three-round burst.

"Mr. Thomas, What's going on down there?", Keiichi asked, "Are you hurt".

"I'm fine, just took out another one of those armless freaks", Ethan responded, "Its safe to come down".

The corridor Keiichi and Rena descended into was similar to the maze of corridors they had walked through earlier. The corridor was dimly lit, with metal walls and pipes running along the ceiling. Up ahead, there were to corridors branching off the main corridor. Ethan led them along the first corridor, which led to another corner.

As Ethan turned the corner, a sonic blast knocked Ethan over and knocked several pipes off the walls. The pipes seemed to be non-functional, nothing leaked out as they fell to floor. Rena turned the corner and blasted one of the limbless hanging Oro with her Benelli M3, before Keiichi fired his MP7 at the silhouette of another armless figure handing from the ceiling further down the hall, killing the deformed hanging creature that, were it not for the Oro, should have become a human being.

As Keiichi and Rena eliminated the two hanging Oro mutants, Ethan got up on his feet.

"Are you OK?", Rena asked.

"Fine, like those pipes took the brunt of the blast", Ethan replied, pointing out the sections of metal pipe strewn about the floor.

The three of them turned another corner, and dispatched another hanging Oro and a "crawler" that tried to ambush them from the shadows. After easily dealing with the token resistance the mutated cannon fodder offered. Ethan led them down the first of three corridors leading off from the main hallway.

The corridor contained another hanging Oro, which Ethan dispatched with his M4. Beyond the "hanger", was another ladder leading down the lower floor. Ethan climbed down first, followed by Keiichi and Rena.

The ladder led down onto a catwalk that led across a gap that was at least as deep as the height of a three-story building. In the center of the gap was a large, circular platform, with a large piece of Oro machinery in the center. Above that was a smaller, glassed-in platform with a computer terminal in the center.

The walls surrounding the room were covered in hundreds, perhaps even thousands of monitors, though none of them were currently on. Two Oro members ran into the room from a catwalk coming in from the other side. One of the Oro members fired off a burst from an assault rifle at the same as the other fired off a sonic blast. The sonic blast and the bullets both missed, though one of the round grazed Keiichi's arm.

Keiichi responded with a 3-round burst from his MP7, hitting the one of the Oro members in the chest and killing him as Ethan picked off the other with a single well-aimed carbine shot.

Suddenly, a light flashed on in front of the computer terminal, revealing agent Dorland at the controls. At the same time, all of the monitors turned one, revealing surveillance feeds from locations around the city: The intersection of Stafford Street and Sixth Avenue, Fifth and Johnson Road, Sixth and Preston, Third and Broad Street, The City Museum, City Hall, and countless other locations.

"The city is under constant surveillance", Dorland said, "And soon, our systems will be in full operation, further propagating our sonic abilities. There's no escaping us, Mr. Thomas."

"You don't have the fucking right", Ethan said, "Influencing peoples lives like this". As he spoke, Ethan raised his M4 carbine and punctuated his sentence by firing a several rounds Dorland, but the glass in front of Dorland did not give way when hit by the round, cracking, but not breaking.

"Damn!", Ethan said, "Its bulletproof".

"And Mr. and Mrs. Maebara", Dorland said, ignoring the fact that Ethan just shot at him, "I have some things you might be interested to know. Things about Hinamizawa."

Keiichi and Rena stared as the image on all the monitors changed from surveillance feeds of the city, to similar feeds of the village of Hinamizawa. According to the dates on the cameras, these were real time feeds of the Furude Shrine, the Sonozaki estate, the Hinamizawa School, and numerous other locations in the village. There were even images of street corners where Keiichi and Rena's old houses could be seen.

"We became interested _Lyssavirus Hinamizawensis, _better known as the Hinamizawa Syndrome in the late 1970s, after hearing stories about its effects on the villagers. We were very interested to see how the syndrome would interact with our sonic emissions.", Dorland explained, "So, we had the dam construction project called off, A group of Oro members within the Japanese government, you might know them as the "Tokyo Conspiracy", covertly placed sonic emitters in the village. From 1979 to 1982, we activated the emitters for one day on the night of the Watanagashi Festival. As you know, the tests were an outstanding success, leading two murders every year. So, in 1983, we decided to take the test full scale, activate the emitters for an extended period of time, let the village descend into chaos, and then wipe out the survivors with poison gas, eliminating any witness, and pass the whole thing off as volcanic gas leak. Of course, you and your friends exposing our plans were an… unexpected setback. But know this, our research on the Hinamizawa virus continues in secret."

"USODA!", Japanese for "LIAR!", Rena yelled.

"You don't believe me?", Dorland asked.

Keiichi did not know if Dorland understood Japanese, or simply guessed the meaning of Rena's words, but he figured the latter was more likely.

"Well, I happen to know an old friend of yours who would be able to convince you!", Dorland continued. As he finished punching in some commands on the keyboard, he left the room on a catwalk leading away from the platform.

The images on the monitors on the wall changed again, showing a woman in her late 50s, perhaps even early 60s, wearing a lab coat, who appeared to be in a laboratory, though unlike the other camera feeds, it did not show the location, only the date, which again showed the image was live. Keiichi and Rena both immediately recognized the face of the woman in the image.

"Hello Maebara-san and Ryuguu… I mean Maebara-san", the woman said

"Takano!", Rena exclaimed

"You can't be… Miyo Takano was convicted of the murders of the six Watanagashi victims, and the conspiracy to murder the entire village of Hinamizawa.", Keiichi said, "I heard she escaped the death penalty by reason of insanity, you should be… I mean Takano is currently in a mental institution!"

"That is where you are wrong" Maebara-san, "I am working with the Oro on the Hinamizawa virus, we should have the new strain ready by the end of the year. Perhaps we should test it out on Hinamizawa, I believe you friends Sonozaki san, Furude-san, and Houjou san are still living in the village".

"So", Keiichi said, suddenly getting an idea of how to prove once and for all that this woman couldn't be the real Takano, "If you are really Miyo Takano, you should know what two things were Satoko Houjou unable to distinguish between, and why?"

There was no way anyone who did not actually know Satoko Houjou could know this.

"Satoko could not tell the difference between broccoli and cauliflower. This was because she was colorblind. Unusual for colorblindness to occur in girls, but it does happen", Takano smiled as she spoke.

Keiichi and Rena stared at the woman in the screen, she WAS Takano.

Finally, Ethan spoke up, "Come on", he said, "Lets get going after Dorland, this bitch will get what's coming to her soon enough!"

Keiichi and Rena followed, realizing there was no point in being taunted by Takano any longer.

As Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena left, Takano said, laughing, "I guess I'll see you then, I hope you can bring your friend with you, I look forward to meeting him!".

Ethan crossed a catwalk below the one Dorland crossed on, heading in the same direction, into a sort of control room over looking a room full of humming machinery. The former agent walked over to a control panel.

"STOP, STEP AWAY!", Dorland yelled over the intercom.

Ethan ignored him and pulled a sliding lever beyond a point labeled "DANGER: Increasing power levels beyond this point may result in catastrophic failure."

Suddenly, a series of explosions rocked the ship's hull that was the Oro compound, destroying the machinery that powered the emitters throughout the city. Secondary explosions cascaded out, along the wires, causing debris to fall from the roof.

"Run!", Ethan said, as the three of them sprinted onto the catwalk, back across to the platform in the "surveillance room". From the catwalk above Dorland ran into the room and fired a sonic blast.

The blast missed, but it caused something in the center of the platform to explode, not harming Ethan, Keiichi, or Rena, but blowing the guns out of their hands, off the platform.

Ethan received a call on his speakerphone from Rosa at that moment: "What did you do! Forget Dorland and get out of there!"

"He's unfinished business!", Ethan replied.

"OK", Rosa said, "I've got help arriving soon."

As Ethan finished talking to Rosa, a pair of Oro "crawlers" rounded on Ethan.

Keiichi grabbed a metal pipe from the debris that now covered the platform, as Rena grabbed hold of a steel bar of some description.

"We'll take care of these guys", Keiichi said, "Concentrate on Dorland!".

Keiichi blocked a strike from one of the "crawlers", which attacked him with a piece of rebar and struck it over the head with his pipe, knocking it to floor.

The second "crawler" tackled Keiichi to the ground and tried to thrust a sharp piece of scrap metal into his throat. Rena ran to his side and kicked the "crawler" hard to the side, knocking it off a platform to its death.

As Keiichi and Rena dealt with the crawlers, Ethan used his sonic emission abilities to blast the metal implants of Dorland's face, silencing his sonic emissions. Ethan ran at Dorland and punched him in the face first once, then twice, knocking him backwards.

Dorland drew a handgun from his side and tried to aim it at Ethan but, he was too late. Ethan fired a second sonic blast, knocking him over, apparently dead.

It turned out, however, Dorland was not dead. "You're a fool", Dorland said.

"Shut up!, Ethan responded, "What are the Oro's motives?"

"To create hostility, the unwavering desire to fight", Dorland responded, "To unknowingly become out protectors?"

"Protect us from what?", Ethan asked as held his hand to Dorland's throat

"You don't know, do you?", he asked, as Dorland seemed to fall into unconsciousness, "Christ, you're the fool, a puppet like everyone else!"

As Ethan tried to get answers out of Dorland, he didn't notice that Keiichi and Rena were already climbing up a rope ladder dangling from a helicopter.

"Now Ethan, grab the ladder now!", Rosa said.

Ethan ran across the platform, jumped, and grabbed onto the ladder. As he tried to climb up the ladder, he lost his grip as he felt a weight pulling him down. Keiichi tried to grab his hand, but he couldn't reach.

Ethan only barely managed to grab the last rung of the ladder. Looking down, Ethan saw Dorland hanging onto his foot.

"Get the fuck off me!", Ethan shouted, stepping on Dorland's face, causing him to lose his grip and fall hundreds of feet to the bottom of the ship's hull that was the Oro compound.

"Enjoy the scenic route, asshole!", Ethan said, as he climbed up the ladder through a hole in the Oro compound roof and into the helicopter. As soon as Ethan got in, the helicopter took off. Behind them, the middle of the Oro compound exploded in a flash of fire. The structure of the old ships hull the compound was built from was critically compromised, and the structure collapse into a cloud of dust and smoke, clearing to reveal a massive heap of debris.

"Cutting it a little close, wouldn't you say?", Rosa said as Ethan sat in the row of seats in the back of the helicopter, opposite Keiichi who had his arm around Rena, who was already asleep, her head on his shoulder.

"Anyway, the you-know-what has really hit the fan", Rosa said, "You've uncovered something big, and I suspect over the next few weeks more will be weeded out. Good thing too, some really influential people belong to the Oro."

"Hey buddy", Le Rue, who was sitting in the pilot's seat of the helicopter, "Soon as they fix that leg up, what do you say you and I go for a drink."

"I don't think so, LeRue", Ethan replied.

"Hey man, call be Pierce", LeRue replied, "My friends call me Pierce".

"What I need", Ethan said as he lay back in the seat, "Is some sleep"

_3 Hours Later:_

Keiichi and Rena sat on the bed of a hotel room. One the TV, the U.S. president was giving an interview.

"Mr. President, what about the increase in violence, it appears to be a national problem?", a reporter on the TV asked.

"We're looking into the issue. We are also supporting all local agencies in their efforts to…", the president responded, but was cut off by a White House staffer.

"Oh, excuse me for a moment", the president said as the staffer handed him a memo which consisted of a single piece of paper. The president read the paper and immediately clutched his heart and collapsed. Two Secret Service agents carried the president out of the room as quickly as possible, while a third picked up the memo before any of the cameras could get a look at it.

"What the…", Keiichi said in surprise.

"It looks like he collapsed as soon as he got that memo", Rena said.

"I have a feeling its something to do with the Oro.", Keiichi said.

"Then the president is…. a member?", Rena said in disbelief.

"It seems that way.", Keiichi said, "I wouldn't be surprised it had something to do with what Mr. Thomas… and what we did… last night."

Keiichi didn't know it, but he was right, the memo had just five words: "The remedy is among us!"

"But that's not my biggest concern", Keiichi said, "Remember what Takano said on that video phone thing in the Oro compound? We need to find a way to Japan, get to Hinamizawa before something terrible happens."

**Authors Notes: **

**I chose the FN P90 in chapter six and the MP7 in this chapter because these weapons fire "micro-rifle" rounds, unlike the pistol caliber ammunition fired by most submachine guns, such as the widely-used MP5. The "micro-rifle" rounds of the P90 and the MP7 would be much more likely to pierce the body armor of the SCU SWAT units that Ethan, Keiichi, and Rena were up against in those chapters. **

**As for the belt-fed machine guns, I inserted them to add a further difference from the original Condemned levels. The M203 grenade launcher attached to Ethan's rifle was added to provide an alternate means of destroying Dorland's helicopter. The statement Ethan makes about SWAT units using grenade launchers to fire tear gas rounds is true, though, to my knowledge, the M203 is not in real life SWAT usage, only with the military (Police units tend to use standalone launchers that are not attached to their rifles). However, the SCU is a fictional organization, and, as I explained with the explosive grenade rounds, were given military-grade hardware by Oro contacts within the military. **

**In the previous chapter, you may have noticed that I had removed the "Oro crossbow" found in the junk barge. That is because I thought the crossbow as a weapon that was inserted into the level with the intent that it would play a larger role later as an Oro weapon, but was later forgotten and just "left" in the level as a means to destroy the armored enemies. I replaced it with the M1911 so as to make a reference both to the first Condemned and Takano's weapon of choice in Higurashi. **

**As far as the Oro themselves are concerned, they now have two sonic attacks, a longer-duration sonic emission that causes damage more slowly, as seen in the Condemned games, and a shorter, more powerful blast, similar to Ethan's sonic attack, though not as powerful. I added the Oro members that carried firearms because, if you save a firearm from the fight with the SWAT team, you will notice that the Oro are very vulnerable to gunfire, their sonic emissions lacking the range to counter firearms. I assumed the Oro of all people would know this, and armed some of the Oro members with weapons similar to those of the SCU SWAT teams.**

**As per the scientific name of the Hinamizawa virus, **_**Lyssavirus Hinamizawensis, **_**this is a reference to the speculation that the Hinamizawa virus is related to the rabies virus. The rabies virus is also of the genus **_**Lyssavirus.**_

**As far as the supernatural elements of Higurashi are concerned, most of them are explained as a combination of the effects of the Hinamizawa syndrome and Oro experiments with sonic emitters. The events of Umineko and any hints of supernatural manipulation of Hinamizawa on the part of Bernkastel and Lamdadelta are not part of this universe (Though Ethan would probably react to them in much the same way as the Oro: "You don't have the fucking right!" Whether he'd be able to stop them depends on whether or not they are immune to sonic blasts!), both because I came up with the idea for this crossover a while ago, before I saw Umineko, and to make it better fit with the Condemned universe (and I prefer the "mostly non-fantasy" interpretations of Higurashi). As for the events of Umineko, they are delusions from an Oro sonic emitter test on Rokkenjima island, leading to the Ushiromiya family having delusions of demons and witchcraft and killing each other. The only "fantasy" elements left ambiguous Hanyuu and the "universe skipping" between each arc. I will leave that up to the readers' personal view whether the "memories " of previous universes are "real" or just the imagination of Keiichi and Rena, and whether Hanyuu is a actually a spirit of a past Watanagashi victim, or whether she is a simply a friendlier version of Ethan's "Alcohol Demon".**


End file.
